Today’s episode is actually three episodes! The Federation manages to steal a Jem’Hadar ship in one episode, only for it to get shot down the next, and all the while, the surprise appearances of multiple teenagers make several people uncomfortable. When can you start to see the Diane Carey traces? If we believe hard enough in art, will it do something? And how can I minimize my Fandom exposure levels? All this and more in A Call to Arms, the book that’s here to kick ass and chew toothpicks.

A Call to Arms…
Author: Diane Carey
Pages: 267
Published: November 1998
Timeline: Beginning of season six
Prerequisites: “A Time to Stand”, “Rocks and Shoals”, and “Sons and Daughters” (6×01, 02, and 03)
Not to be confused with: A Call to Darkness (TNG #9); the expansion of the Star Trek CCG called Call to Arms

Reading a novelization of a movie for this site has historically not proven laborious or difficult. Nor has reading a novelization of a single episode. Reading a novelization of several episodes, however? Kind of laborious and difficult!

When I started the Dominion War miniseries, I thought it was going to be two original stories apiece, each stretched across two books. Turns out it’s part one of a fully original story, then part one of a novelization of several episodes of Deep Space Nine from the middle of the Dominion War arc, then part two of each. I really don’t like how they divided them, as the alternating order makes it tough for either one to maintain whatever narrative momentum it builds up in its first installment, though I can’t say I would have had any better ideas than “why don’t they just publish thicker books”.

“A Time to Stand”, “Rocks and Shoals”, and “Sons and Daughters” are the three main episodes covered in book two. In the first, Sisko takes a captured Jem’Hadar ship to destroy a strategically important facility in Cardassian territory that manufactures ketracel-white. Then, said Jem’Hadar ship, crippled by the not-quite-clean getaway of that mission, crashes on an uncharted planet near a Jem’Hadar camp that’s handicapped by a ketracel-white shortage and an injured Vorta. Finally, the lives and loyalties of Worf and Kira are complicated and tested by the sudden arrivals of Alexander, now a member of the Klingon Defense Force who has been transferred to the Rotarran, and Gul Dukat’s daughter Ziyal, returning from college on Bajor.

Most of the extra content comes from fleshing out Charlie Reynolds, an old friend of Sisko who in the show is mentioned only in dialogue, but now receives a whole history, personality, and even a somewhat cool scene where he corners Admiral Ross into admitting there’s more going on than meets the eye. And although Carey has previously made clear her disdain for Klingon ways, it seems she warmed quickly to Martok, as she gives him several additional scenes (talking to Sisko about changelings, eavesdropping twice from his office on the Rotarran).

I wrestled with rewatching all the episodes listed on the back cover, but ultimately settled for skimming Memory Alpha1Very quickly skimming, because Memory Alpha is ugly as sin and a total piece of shit. and hoping I could sniff out the bonus bits. Thankfully, with a writer as idiosyncratic as Diane Carey, that wasn’t too difficult. It’s hard to describe, but you can tell when she starts going off-book by the fact that the dialogue starts getting kind of clunky. Also, Charlie Reynolds represents a pretty standard Diane Carey characterization, which means he’s a rakish, hard-headed, white male maverick with a cheeky but loyal crew who runs his ship a fair bit more loosely than regulations call for. Reading his chapters is akin to briefly Quantum Leaping into an 80s TOS novel before returning to the present, which is rather jarring. None of it is bad enough to start sharpening knives, though.

There’s no reason to read this today other than sheer completionism, but as always, it’s important to consider these things in the context of their time, and with serialization really taking off on Deep Space Nine and dial-up still being the prevailing method of internet access, I guess I can see how this kind of digest had its uses. I don’t remember the airing schedules for syndicated shows, so maybe there was a decent chance at catching a rerun that you wouldn’t have had for a broadcast network show, but if you missed some pieces of the arc and couldn’t go back for a while, something like this would have helped fill you in. Readers nowadays aren’t going to need the main points of the Dominion War filled in, however; they’re going to want the margins filled out.

MVP & LVP

• My MVP for this installment is Martok. Of course, it’s fun to hear J.G. Hertzler’s signature growl in my head again as I read his dialogue, but more than that, he’s just the effortlessly cool badass the Klingons always needed, and he’s a better father to Alexander in his few short pages/minutes with him than Worf ever was in seven seasons of TNG.
• Which I guess leads naturally into considering Worf the LVP. Say what you will about what a naive galoot teenage/almost-adult Alexander is, but you can’t say he doesn’t come by it honestly. I gotta admit, I don’t understand people who think Worf is cool. Dude is always tripping over his own feet (metaphorically).

Stray Bits

• As the books start to get more into the sort of serial storytelling pioneered within the franchise by Deep Space Nine, it’s getting more difficult to judge a single book on its own merits. I have no plans to combine future miniseries into single reviews (why make getting reviews out take even longer than it does now?), but I’m thinking I may have to withhold ratings on individual installments until a whole miniseries shakes out in order to get a more accurate bead on how they fit in to the bigger picture. What do y’all think?
• Wondering when you’ll first get that signature Diane Carey feel? It takes until page 36: “The situation was as grim as Valley Forge.” Then, just two pages later, she unfavorably compares a speech to the Gettysburg Address. Ahhh, it’s like a familiar old blanket!
• “At the helm beside Lang, Roger Buick chewed on his perpetual toothpick and shook his head.” It took this moment to realize there’s always something quirky like this on a Diane Carey bridge. They always have these little idiosyncrasies, like Robert April and his cardigan, the decapus mascot, etc. It’s often hard to decide whether it’s cute or a weak substitute for interesting characterization. (117)
• “Kira was glad Dukat spoke up. She didn’t want to laud Ziyal for a simplistic hope, but that’s what it was. Artwork, or any manner of passive inoculation, simply couldn’t bring people together who had fundamental moral differences. Struggle, disagreement, and conflict were, at their core, healthy elements of society—at least, a free society.” This is one of those statements that sounds agreeable enough on the surface, but is also sort of like, well, if you really believe that, then why are you so invested in something like Star Trek? (198)

Final Assessment

Average. After a fascinating look at the TNG side of the Dominion War, we get a rundown of about a month’s worth of TV Guide synopses. I can watch the shows any time I want. I come to the books for original action! To her credit, Carey does fit as much of that in as the format will accommodate, but if you aren’t living in 1998 without access to syndicated television, this isn’t going to do much for you.

NEXT TIME: Burrowing a Tunnel Through the Stars