Rating: 
Summary: Amazing
Review: I have the greatest admiration for an actor who can put on paper the character he plays. Not only that, give the character more substance.
I had always found the character Garak compelling, mysterious, and always a treat to see. I never really realized the actors talent until I read this book. OMG! This book sucks you in and doesn't let you go, even at the end. I've read so many books by various authors (including Shatner) and NONE can portray the characters as well as Andrew can. He breathes real life into the character.
I'm not going to go over the premise of this story due to it being covered by several other reviewers here.
This is a must read for anyone who enjoys Star Trek: DS9. All other ST books can be set aside.
Rating: 
Summary: good, but not quite what I expected
Review: The life story of Garak written as a letter to Dr. Bashir on DS9 starts out at a very good pace and keeps the reader's interest. Later however, one will either love the rest of the content or consider it average to good at best. The beginning of the book has Garak talking about what he's doing now to help rebuild Cardassia and his experiences at a prestigious intsitute called Bamarren. Bamarren is a place that trains a select group of Cardassians to become intelligence operatives. I found the initial discussion about Bamarren interesting because I was eager to find out more about the harsh training. The more I read however, the more my interest dwindled. Andrew Robinson is undoubtely a very good writer, but I simply found some of his descriptions at the intelligence institute rather vague and inconsistent. For example, "the pit" is mentioned but I still don't know exactly what it is and exactly what was done there and how. At first, I thought it was just a place where the Cardassians fight one another, but it was stated that many of them are in the pit at once just standing doing nothing until they start passing out. Another thing about the pit was that its heat was supposed to be part of the training, but I always thought that Cardassians had a very high threshold for enduring heat. The author's description of the so-called martial ways of the Cardassians were very vague. It would have been better if he didn't even mention anything about martial arts in the first place. Much of the book is character driven and centers around Garak's love interest, his relations with Enabrain Tain, his feelings towards others and his interpersonal relations. How Garak deals with betrayal, unspoken love and deceit are given good treatment.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Psychological Insights!
Review: Lucky for us, Andrew J. Robinson is a playwright as well as a masterful actor. His writing ability shines in this wonderful novel based on the best of all the STAR TREK series. Did I like DEEP SPACE NINE? Well, the proof's in what happened after DS9 went off the air. I haven't watched anything since more than once or twice, and am purchasing all the DS9 videotapes. I wouldn't dream of going to that expense for any other TV show. Garak wasn't the only complex and well-drawn character on DS9--most of them were, thus the show's appeal--but he was certainly one of the more interesting ones. Garak began as an occasional secondary character on DS9 (was he a spy or wasn't he??) and from the outset was so well-portrayed by Andrew Robinson that the writers included him into the plots more and more as the series progressed. At the end Robinson should have received lead billing, since we saw him more often than Cirroc Lofton, the talented teenager who played Jake Sisko. Watching Robinson's subtle acting, I realized that he'd given much thought to a deeply psychological characterization of Garak, and am very grateful that he finally has had the chance to pour it all out on paper in this terrific book, A STITCH IN TIME, which I could compare favorably with Gene Wolfe's "New Sun" novels, recording the life of Severian, ex-torturer's apprentice, whom Garak resembles in many ways. I've read a few other DS9 novels, none of them even close to this one in the qualities that make a good novel. The only quibble, if it really is one, is that a reader totally unfamiliar with DS9 might be a little bewildered at the outset. Any reader, however, can get into it, and once beyond the first few pages I guarantee he or she will be mesmerized. That's because Robinson has produced a genuine novel, not hackwork. The writing style has a Wolfean quality to it, both wonderfully descriptive yet surreal. Garak, the ultimate cynic, shows us how manipulation corrupts, that the moral imperative of nationalist patriotism too often erodes the greater moral good of conscience. We understand his need to reconcile himself to a shameful past in order to continue living, we sorrow with him at the destruction of everything familiar, and we are inside his mind as he grows and changes and finally learns from his harrowing experiences. This book packs a wallop.
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