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Inferno (Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Millennium Book 3 of 3)

Inferno (Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Millennium Book 3 of 3)

List Price: $6.50
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A bit disjointed at the beginning...
Review: ...but it eventually settles down to the inspired level of the first two. But, as Meatloaf put it; "Two out of three ain't bad". One of the most powerful characters throughout the series is a "secular" Bajoran Starfleet officer (she grew up on a newer colony without much "old world" influence) becomes in this volume a religious fanatic who gets brainwashed into a breakaway sect whose "emmisary" is a Weyoun clone (! ). Another feature is Jake Sisko's opportunity to play a real adult role rather than Ben's kid. Odo is just, well...Odo. The type of dude you can always count on. I'm not going to give away any more of the story--with a tale this big, you can give the ending away a lot earlier than with just one book. But here's a warning--you can't just buy this book and come away satisfied--you gotta get the other two. Hell, buy all three at once, it's worth the 16 bucks and will save you on shipping. The Reeves-Stevens household has apparently decided to take the "lightweight" out of Trek fiction and I hope it becomes a habit. As well as rubbing off on other Trek authors.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great.
Review: A great end to the Millennium books. I really liked it. I would like to write a very long review but then I would give away the plot, so i'm just going to say GREAT!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Extremely disappointing!
Review: After two fantastic chapters in the "Millenium" trilogy, setting up a battle that takes place in an environment of "non-linear" time, the third book, "Inferno" completely falls on its face, which is extremely disappointing to me.

Nearly all of the book is a muddle of time paradoxes, with the crews of two ships trying to get to DS9 at the same relative time. None of it makes any sense, and is extremely repetitive.

With as little as the TV show gave us in the way of real "backstory" of the Prophets and Pah-Wraiths, I had hoped this conclusion would give us a more satisfying resolution to the DS9 saga (in my opinion, DS9 is simply the best Trek ever produced). After all, the first two volumes primary focus was on these aliens who live outside of normal time, and their effect on the major characters. However, the third book discards all that in favor of straight action. It's almost as if one half of the Reeves-Stevens clans wrote the first two books, and the other tossed all that setup away in favor of their own ideas. The disappointing finale to the TV show was light years better than this muddle.

I'd like to be able to recommend the entire trilogy based on the strengths of the first two books, but unfortunately, I can't. So much promise was wasted, that I'm afraid my trepidation about Star Trek novels remains firmly in place. Sigh.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best Trek books I've ever read
Review: Amazingly, someone other than Peter David has written a series of Trek books that are just as good, if not better than, their source material. This trilogy is hands-down enjoyable, with a truly epic feel to it and some great foreshadowing of events that take place in season 7. This story picks up after the end of DS9 but quickly jumps back to season 6 and from there to an alternate reality that is chilling. One of the best portrayals of Weyoun I've ever seen! The new characters, esp. Arla, are interesting and well fleshed out. If you like deep plots (sometimes almost too deep, I admit) and strong characterization, I urge you to try this series.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Return to the Beginning
Review: As far as I can see, there are two kinds of readers: Those who have read the previous 2 books of the Millennium series, and those who haven't. To people belonging to the second group, I don't advise to read this book. Although the authors really try to give all necessary background information, they, most unfortunately, don't succeed. As a result, you will be unable to understand important parts of the plot and to feel the charm of "Inferno".

For the other group of readers, this book is a real MUST!

The story seems to be quite simple: The Universe has collapsed and the only existing realm is the wormhole. Starship Defiant, Klingon battlecruiser Boreth and Deep Space Nine itself are caught in the nonlinear realm in bubbles of space-time, the only remnants of the old Universe. Those bubbles are extremely unstable and dissolve quickly, so that the crews of the Defiant and the Boreth have got only about thirty hours to save the Universe, to bring it back from nothingness. If they fail, they are doomed to share that nothingness with their former Universe.

Now you probably want to know how it is possible to save something that doesn't exist anymore, that has physicaly never existed and will never exist. I confess I don't know either, and that is the first negative point about this novel. There are certain physical processes going on, but the authors obviously don't consider them too important to explain them.

Exactly the same can be told about time travel which is extremely important for the story. In the first two books (particularly in Book 2), methods of time travel were explained using the most modern theories concerning space-time. Even though I am not a physicist, I liked them very much and wanted to find out more about them in "Inferno". But I wasn't given an opportunity to do it. Furthermore certain processes in this book stood in direct contradiction to the explanations from Book 2. That was a pity. The authors probably haven't thought it out all too well.

But apart from these two points, "Inferno" and the entire Millennium series were a real fun. I consider those three books as masterpieces of Star Trek fiction. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens are really geniuses. The characterizations throughout the series are outstanding; the books are full of irony, humor, gripping action, suspense and strong human feelings, which make the story more realistic in my eyes. Furthermore they deal in a unique way with difficult religious and philosophical questions. And, last but not least, the novels bring back into action the crew of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we have missed so much since the end of the series on TV.

I, for my part, liked the Millennium series, and if you read it, you will certainly not regret it either.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Epic Series! End book ties together all the pieces nicely.
Review: Book II ended with Sisko in hell, and so I immediately jumped into book III. I was not disappointed. It took me only 3 days to complete, making this trilogy my fastest ever read trilogy.
The description of peoples' intellectual rather than physical hell was interesting. Question: was Worf in hell or did the Pah-Wraiths not know what got to him? Anyways, that's a moot point.
The authors themselves lay claim to being experts with the theory of nonlinear time (and time travel), and I must say this book (and the series in general, especially the Prologues with the Prophets) deals with it VERY well. This book is very good. I was so glad to see events from Book I portrayed from another viewpoint as the crew traveled back in time to DS9 during the Cardassian withdrawal and the destruction of the station. The way the crew jumps back and forth through time (corresponding with shifts from the blue to the red wormholes/temples) was brilliant! I was so very impressed by the lack of plot holes, or rather the consistency of the plots and how they tied together nicely and often quite surprisingly.
Garak vs Garak...what can one say? I've been wanting to see that for ages, and it was pure hilarity! Garak's final comments when Sisko observes him secretly handing something to past Garak is bang on what I expect of him. GREAT writing here! Sisko's constant worrying for his son was handled well. Jake finally doing something was much welcomed. Kira hugging Arla was pure emotional gold. Simple, yet beautiful. The 3 great Bajoran prophets! I assumed I knew who they were and the ending confimed that assumption. Quite funny, sort of like the Ferengi on the VOY episode. Btw, what happens to Vash? Surely she's not stuck in the past...I'm sure Q will bring her back to the 'present'. Regardless, a paradox still remains as reviewer Shuster points out. That it wasn't completely solved is understandable, and considering all the other plot holes that could have occured but did not, I am overall very impressed and pleased with having read these books.
Oh, and how about Weyoun's hell.. that was soo utterly sad and depressing I actually felt bad for him. Couldn't believe the writers could make me feel that way.
SPOILER: Dax killing future Dukat is absolutely pure brilliance seeing as the books take place the episode before Dax is killed by Dukat ("Tears of the Prophets").
The series actually has some subtle forewarning to what happens in Season 7 of DS9. Worf and Dax's concerns over who will die first is more profound knowing Jadzia Dax dies on the show. Simple stuff like that really make this series outstanding. Oh, and Vic's reappearance and philosophy is quite mind-rattling...(as it is in "Lives of Dax").
Once again the characterizations are spot on.
I also agree with reviewer Gawrisch that this book should not be read alone. Although it could be, it has so much more weight and value to it, AND INTRIGUE, having read the first two books first. Reviewer Clark hadn't read the first two and still gave the book 4/5 rating and called it the best DS9 book written. Had she read the first two she may have to change her mind (or some of the newer DS9 relaunch books).
Oh, and the Epilogue ties in nicely with the other DS9 relaunch books, paving way for Perry's novels Avatar, Rising Son and Unity.

All in all this is to date the best Trek trilogy written.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So fast I was getting dizzy
Review: I never read the first two books, which made it difficult for me to understand. I still found it very confusing. Other than that small drawback, it is by far the best DS9 book written. Reeves-Stevens are some of the best writers in Trek today, and I knew when I found it that this would be good as well. They have a good understanding of space and time travel, which makes the book more authentic. If you're looking for a wild ride, you found a great one!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So fast I was getting dizzy
Review: I never read the first two books, which made it difficult for me to understand. I still found it very confusing. Other than that small drawback, it is by far the best DS9 book written. Reeves-Stevens are some of the best writers in Trek today, and I knew when I found it that this would be good as well. They have a good understanding of space and time travel, which makes the book more authentic. If you're looking for a wild ride, you found a great one!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Been There, Done That
Review: If you thought DS9's series ending, "What You Leave Behind", was disappointing, be glad that at least the writers didn't inflict this book's storyline on you. This trilogy is basically TNG's "All Good Things..." set in the DS9 series. If you just loooove time travel stories, run to the store and buy this trilogy. If you find such stories pointless, then save your money. The authors certainly know their characters, Trek background, and science. They throw literally everything but the kitchen sink into the plot. That's the problem. Everything is written equally well, but nothing is written wonderfully. The plot goes along like great guns but, by the third book, turns back on itself and the reader ends up right where he/she started. There are far too many red herrings. The regular characters (no matter how many good scenes they may have) get lost in all the sturm und drang. The guest characters, like the smug Bajoran monks and the snobby, atheist-turned-true believer, Commander Arla, are thoroughly obnoxious. Ultimately, we don't learn anything new about either the characters or the Trek universe. I might call this a necessary evil in profic, but then I recall books like DS9's "Fallen Heroes," "The Siege," and "Bloodletter," TNG's "A Rock And A Hard Place" and "Fortune's Light," the ripping good crossover series "Invasion," comics like Malibu's DS9 series and DC's several Trek series. All of the above provided interesting stories that told something new about the Trek universe. What happened, folks? I can find fanfic on the Net every day that's more original than this trilogy--and, it's free.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent
Review: It seems, when it comes to Star Trek books, that nothing is better than a good war story, except for a good time travel story which is well-handled. Which is just what Inferno is. Now that the series has ended, authors can go to new extremes with DS9, which is exactly what they do. Excellent character development. Excellent action. Excellent time-travel paradoxes and devices. Excellent semi-intelligably technobabble. This is, I believe, the very best of the published DS9 novels. I don't know what to say, other than, "READ IT!" Do yourself a favor and read it. You won't regret it.


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