Legends of the Ferengi

Fun! Silly! With lots of great pictures!

"Legends of the Ferengi" is a much more thought out and fun book than it's previously released cousin "The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition." Every known rule from the series is listed with an excellent backstory, or history if you will, of each rule. The authors did a wonderful job with book and you can tell they had fun making the stories up. This is one of those rare trek extras where even a non hard core fan will get a kick out of it. Thank you to author's for some of the best laughs in trek fiction.

"Legends of the Ferengi" is a hilarious spoof on fairy tales and folklore anthologies. As a folklorist myself, I found dozens of in-jokes that had me literally doubled over with laughter. In the DS9 episode "Rules of Aquisition," the Ferengi Pel claims to know all 285 Rules of Aquisition plus the commentaries. This book gives you some of those commentaries --- at least, for the 70 Rules that were actually revealed on the series. The authors, Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe, wrote most of the DS9 Ferengi episodes. Now they give you the story behind each of the Rules, including #113, the "Rule that dare not speak its name."You will also learn the first two words that any Ferengi learns in the Hew-Mon language ("No refunds"), The ten most famous insults in Ferengi history (see p.32) and the story of the infamous villain Drek, M.H.N.L.I.I. (May His Name Live In Infamy), who actually cut his prices and gave his customers BARGAINS, thereby causing the Ferengi economy to crash. Which is one reason why every Ferengi child is duly warned about the dangers of Real Life through supernatural horror stories about that bogeyman of bogeymen -- the Smiling Partner! And so on. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, which has lots of great B & W stills from the series, too. Drek was right --- some things really ARE bargains!

As a warning to potential buyers: if you bought the Rules of Acquistion book and then buy this one, Quark reminds you at one point that you were suckered into buying the same stuff twice. But besides that, this is a hilarious book with tons of Star Trek inside references. Ira Steven Behr and Robert Hewitt Wolfe wrote nearly all the "Ferengi episodes" of DS9 so this book is a real treat. So line Quark's pockets with latinum and get both.

While it doesn't cover all the Rules of Acquisition--only roughly a quarter of the alleged 285 were mentioned on the shows before the next-to-last episode of DS9 said they were no longer being taught--it's still a fun read. It consists of little parables and stories and games to illustrate what the Rules were trying to pass on, such as "There is no substitute for success" involving a riot at a public event on Ferenginar because a band called Success never appeared. To top it off, the DS9 producers made it "official" by mentioning some of the stuff that appears in it in episodes, like Sisko's middle name and a couple of popular Ferengi beverages.

I don't give ratings of "10" frivolously. LEGENDS OF THE FERENGI tells how the infamous Ferengi Rules of Acquisition originated. There's lots of humor and good sense to learn. I loved it from beginning to end. One Note: This book is now in audiobook form, a bit different from the book, but just as entertaining. It is read by Quark himself, Armin Shimerman.