Rating: 
Summary: Sophistication beyond most Star Trek
Review: This book screams "Star Trek" to me--it somehow manages to resonate with social themes and current crises while still being wildly entertaining. The author is brave enough to take on resonant social themes--like whether one owes greater allegiance to the society or the self, or what price we're willing to pay to extinguish our enemies--while still being skilled enough to make the characters both recognizable and fresh. Much more sophisticated than the (solid) first book in the Mission: Gamma series--in fact, more "literary" in scope and tone than most media tie-in books. Makes me want to read the third and fourth books now!
Rating: 
Summary: The series turns lighter
Review: This book turns to the lighter side of character development. To begin with, there is a lot of wit and humour and amusingly dry observations. The author manages that fine blend of presenting a story that is quite serious for those involved but amusing for us. The Defiant side of the story is entirely in this vein, letting us get to know the new major and many minor characters. It concludes with a neatly done action finale. The pacing of the book is very good in the first and last thirds, but the middle third could have advanced the story in a lot less words. On the station side, the last third of the book is much more serious and hard-hitting. When Cardassian-Bajoran negotiations finally start, they go against what the reader might expect, and establish a mystery for later books. The style of the negotiations is not a pleasant one for the characters, and to a certain extent that extends to reading about them. However there is only one part of the book I did not like, the Andorian subplot. The Andorians on the station are disdainfully manipulative and irritatingly neurotic. It is basically impossible to like or sympathize with them. Also, they contribute nothing to the book except to show off the station's new counselor. Shar and his quest, a major feature of the Defiant's story, seems strong enough to me to stand on its own. With everything else happening on the station, and involving more familiar and far more likeable characters, dropping the Andorian story would have improved the book. All in all, this is a good and entertaining story that needed some tightening up and a few less displays of Andorian temper.
Rating:
Summary: Well done, Heather!
Review: This first work by Heather Jarman is fantastic. She has proven not only to be a good writer but also has a deep insight in the
charcters of the DS9 people. We want more of her!
Rating: 
Summary: Angst here, angst there...I'm really feeling bad about that.
Review: This Gray Spirit is the first book written by Heather Jarman, which I think is unusual for a Star Trek book. It has the difficult job of continuing the Defiant's exploration of the Gamma Quadrant and the political machinations that are resulting from Bajor's application to join the Federation. As such, there's a lot of story to juggle. While not as big as Twilight, it's still almost 400 packed pages. For a first effort, it's very good, but there are some real problems with it that I hope she rectifies in her subsequent books.
I said in my review of Twilight that the book was full of Vaughn's angst. Unfortunately, the trend continues in This Gray Spirit, though this time it's Dax's turn. Dax is a Trill, a species with a humanoid host containing a slug that's been alive for a long time, and Dax has been alive for three hundred years. Ezri was joined against her will as the only Trill on board when her ship was attacked by the Dominion. Thus, she's had to assimilate a lot of abilities and memories, and she's still working toward that. She's forced into an extremely diplomatic situation on the planet and she has to try and use her various Dax personalities to come up with a way out of the current problem. While it's interesting to see Dax's dilemma, I do have to say that the angst factor was turned up to a high level and got a bit tiring to read about. It helps that Dax is an interesting character, though.
Unfortunately, Dax angst isn't the only angst to deal with. Ensign ch'Thane's Andorian reproductive problems also take center stage in this book. Ch'Thane isn't the problem, however. It's his bondmates back on the station who really started to grate on my nerves. One of his three bondmates, Thriss, is extremely fragile and very hurt that he went off to the Gamma Quadrant rather than go home to Andor with them. In fact, occasionally she turns violent, and there is one vivid scene with the security chief, Lieutenant Ro, trying to break up a fight between Thriss and another of her bondmates. Scenes like this really bring home the dilemma, but there are just too many of them. They start to become repetitious and boring. We get the idea that Thriss is despondent over what's going on. Let's get on with it! These scenes do introduce us to the new station counselor, Phillipa Matthias. She is an intriguing character who Ro immediately begins to like (and knowing Ro's feelings about counselors, that's a good thing). I also really liked her, though it will be nice to get to know her a little better than we get in this book.
In addition to the angst, there is the problem of characters. The regulars are fine. No, the characters I'm talking about are the Yrythny, the people who Vaughn and his crew are dealing with. We see the caste system that they have set up, we get an interesting world where these amphibious aliens go back in the water to spawn, with a class of other Yrythny who have no home waters to go to and are thus "lesser" people. The problems on this world are fascinating and I loved how the crew of the Defiant interacted with them. However, there are no real characters for the crew to interact with. The closest we get to a character is Keran, the Delegate who befriends ch'Thane and is trying to get more rights for her fellow Wanderers. Other than Keran, we get a bunch of faceless aliens who I couldn't really distinguish between. When the conspiracy is revealed and the story hits its climax, I didn't really care. I didn't have anything invested in anybody other than whether or not Dax and ch'Thane succeeded in what they were trying to do. If you can't get us to care about any of the characters you introduce, then you've lost half the battle of making an enjoyable book.
That being said, I loved bits and pieces of the book. The climax is full of tension and since it involved the entire Defiant crew in different places, the fact that I didn't care about any of the Yrythny didn't bother me. Plus the events on the station were really intriguing too. Unfortunately, I've been spoiled about what's happening there, so instead of trying to figure out what was going on, I was trying to figure out how what I knew fit in with what was going on, but it was still satisfying. So far I'm finding the political problems on Bajor to be much more interesting than the exploration of the Gamma Quadrant, and I'm not sure that's a good thing. I hope that improves.
Jarman is a pretty good writer, and the fact that I ultimately enjoyed This Gray Spirit despite not really caring about the Andorians or the aliens that she created didn't really take away from that. She did create an intriguing society, and if she ever decides to populate that society with characters I actually want to read about, I'm looking forward to reading that book. The fact that she does such a great job with the regulars also saves this one. Give it a try, even if it is just to get to the next book in the series. It's definitely worth a read. At least once.
David Roy
Rating: 
Summary: Just okay
Review: This is not one of the better Deep Space Nine books. Books three and four of this series are much, much better. We get so bogged down in Andorian angst and, frankly, the author didn't make us care about these characters. This is a very long, small-type book, which could have benefitted from editing. Apparently it's the author's first book. She's got some good skills--she'll get better.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding!
Review: This is, without a doubt, the best Trek novel I've read yet. It's full of suspense, action, intrigue, and the characters pop right off the page. So much better than the first book in the series. The dynamics of the Andorian bondmates are very cool, as are the social and political troubles in the Yrythny society. I can't wait to embark on Heather Jarman's next journey!
Rating:
Summary: The Best in this 4-Book Series
Review: Welcome to the ranks of outstanding sci-fi writers, Ms. Jarman, and I will be looking for your novels from now on. It's a great day when a brand-new writer performs as well as you have in this deeply thought-out book.I very much enjoyed Books One and Three of the series, too, and did not like Book Four at all. But this one, printed in tiny print, satisfied from beginning to end. Others have covered the plot and characters, so I don't intend to do so. I only want to plead for good character development any day over brainless slam-bang action. Now that we've lost Charles Sheffield, I can see that someone is ready to step into his hard-to-fill shoes! Keep writing, Heather!
Rating:
Summary: The Best in this 4-Book Series
Review: Welcome to the ranks of outstanding sci-fi writers, Ms. Jarman, and I will be looking for your novels from now on. It's a great day when a brand-new writer performs as well as you have in this deeply thought-out book. I very much enjoyed Books One and Three of the series, too, and did not like Book Four at all. But this one, printed in tiny print, satisfied from beginning to end. Others have covered the plot and characters, so I don't intend to do so. I only want to plead for good character development any day over brainless slam-bang action. Now that we've lost Charles Sheffield, I can see that someone is ready to step into his hard-to-fill shoes! Keep writing, Heather!
Rating:
Summary: This is likely the best DS9 novel I've read to date.
Review: When pocket books began its relaunch of the DS9 series, starting where the series ended, I was interested in seeing where they'd go with the cast of characters, and also who they would add in to cover the gaps left by the show's finale.
Including Lieutenant Ro as the new chief of security was a stroke of intelligence, but I'm begginning to think the two really strong moves of this new series were the transfer of Ezri Dax to the command branch, and the inclusion of an Andorian science officer, Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane. This is their novel, for the most part, though the continuing plot of Bajor's potential entrance into the Federation is given as much time.
ch'Thane's and Dax are contending with coming up with an objective third-party solution to an internal conflict with a people the Defiant crew have located in the Gamma Quadrant. The parallels that pop up in both their lives are wonderful: for ch'Thane, there is a biological riddle here that is similar to the one his own people are facing, to Dax, this is a chance for her to flex her diplomatic skills as Curzon and Lela did before her. Neither of their efforts result the way you'd think they would, and the turnaround is strong writing and a superb plot addition to the story arc.
For all that Dax and ch'Thane have centre stage, there is still a lot of good time devoted to Kira, and the increasingly snarled complications of Bajor-Cardassia-Federation politics are becoming a joy to read. This is plausible, enjoyable, conflict.
Quite frankly, I enjoyed this DS9 novel the most of all that I have read so far, and applaud that the inside of the book tells us that Heather Jarman will be writing Trek again soon.
'Nathan
Rating:
Summary: Another Great DS9 Relaunch Book
Review: While "This Gray Spirit" wasn't as good as "Twilight" it was still a solid book and a very good read. I liked the way Kira was portrayed and I like the new counsellor that was introduced. I do not like the fact that someone dies at the end though it had been set up. The Andorian relationships are interesting if somewhat complex. I am interested in seeing where this will lead. Ezri seemed a bit out of character being to self assured at least compared to the character from the TV show though I must confess that the characters are dynamic and not static as in the show. There are some things that really dont seem to make sense but one must remember that everything that is done in the DS9 relaunch has a purpose later on.
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