Teaser

Jake Sisko has gone through the wormhole in search of his missing father, but rather than the happy reunion he hopes for, Jake finds himself alone in the Gamma Quadrant. With only a team of scavengers for company, Jake must somehow return home, and uncover what is truly meant by the prophecy that drives him . . .

Review

One of the oddities of Deep Space Nine is that Jake Sisko appears in fewer episodes than Morn. This is odd because Morn is a running gag character without a single line of dialogue, and Jake is listed in the opening credits as a series regular. Of course, there are good reasons for this. Cirroc Lofton was a child actor at the time, and so scheduling was different compared to his adult co-stars. Then there’s his youth. Despite growing up across the series, there are only so many child-centric episodes that Star Trek has in its repertoire. It’s worth pointing out that most child-centric episodes were poorly received by viewers. The best Jake epsiodes are those that focus less on him as a child or young adult, and more on his role as a writer. ‘Nor the Battle to the Strong’ puts Jake’s journalistic skills to good use, while ‘The Muse’ – while not one of the great episodes – is one of few writers-on-writing shows that doesn’t make me want to scream.

The relaunch novels had an opportunity to put Jake Sisko to better use than the show. The character was a little older, and labour laws were no longer a limiting factor in his appearances. However, what actually happened was that Jake went missing for much of the early relaunch, with Rising Son covering his life in the months otherwise chronicled in the Mission Gamma series, among others. Here, we find Jake Sisko falling in with a typically ragtag crew of spacers, encountering a few faces both familiar and not, and generally going off on side quests.

The result is a book that doesn’t feel a whole lot like Star Trek. File away the serial numbers and it could easily slot into the canon of Star Wars, or any generic space opera. The reappearance of a former Kai and the use of a few one-off Gamma Quadrant species ties it back to the show, but without any Starfleet presence or familiar worlds, there’s a curious remoteness to the whole book. I must say though, it was nice to have a Tosk back in Deep Space Nine, as the episode introducing them is a high point of the first season. The continued evolution of that culture is one of the better elements of Rising Son.

Getting back to Jake Sisko himself, however, it’s somewhat disappointing to see little of his on-screen personality come through on the page, especially given the good work Perry has done with other characters from the show. The only hint we get of Jake’s authorial aspirations is in his journal entries, and honestly those could be written by a dozen kinds of character. Instead, Jake becomes yet another plucky interstellar adventurer, whose driving force is entirely wrapped up in the enigmatic disappearance of his father. It all feels like a bit of a wasted opportunity.

Having already read the follow-up book Unity, I can appreciate elements of Rising Son for where they take us later on. Taken as a standalone, however, it is sorely lacking in all the things I come to Star Trek for.

Book Stats

• A Deep Space Nine Relaunch Novel
• Published by Pocket Books in 2003
• Space Opera
• 308 pages