The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Search

For several years now, Diane Carey has been the "go to" author for most of the novelizations of the major episodes in all of the latest Star Trek series. "The Search" is but the second of her novelizations and, while not the best of them, she does a fairly decent job with the novelization of these two, pivotal episodes in the Deep Space Nine series.When reading a novelization of an episode or movie, the reader is looking for but a couple things, some personalization to the characters thoughts throughout the episode and some "between the scenes" scenes. Diane Carey accomplishes that in "The Search," and sets a very good tone for the story, to include the characterizations and the pacing of the novel.The cover art unfortunately is from a time in Star Trek publishing where not a lot of thought was put into the cover, so there really isn't much on the cover that lends to the story other than an image of a Jem'Hadar warship.The premise:The history:"The Search" constitutes one of the most pivotal times in the "saga" that is Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Coming off of the second season finale, "The Jem'Hadar," where we learned a lot more about them when Sisko, Jake, Quark and Nog took a runabout to the Gamma Quadrant to go camping. The Jem'Hadar took Sisko and Quark prisoner but Jake and Nog were able to escape and managed to get the runabout to help. Starfleet sends the USS Odyssey, a Galaxy class starship, through the wormhole to make a rescue attempt for Commander Sisko. The Odyssey immediately runs into several Jem'Hadar warships and is destroyed, quite easily. The ending for this episode is quite ominous, leading up to the beginning of the third season, "The Search" parts I and II.The SearchAs the episode and novel open up, Major Kira and crew are running drills to see how well the station would hold up against a Dominion attack and they're "not exactly" happy with the results. Just as this finishes up, they receive warnings that a ship is de-cloaking right on top of the station but to their great relief it's a Starfleet ship, but of a class they've never seen before.As part of his time between the loss of the USS Saratoga at Wolf 359 and being stationed on Deep Space Nine, Commander Sisko helped design and build the USS Defiant, Starfleet's toughest little ship, which was their answer to Borg problem. Due to design errors though, a fleet of these ships wasn't built though and the project was abandoned until the onset of the war with the Dominion.As the Federations and Starfleet's answer to the Jem'Hadar problem, they send Commander Sisko and the Defiant into the Gamma Quadrant to look for the leaders of the Dominion to tell them that they mean them no harm, but at the same time, the Defiant also carries the message that they can defend themselves.At the same time, Sisko also brings back Commander Eddington to head up Starfleet security on the station which prompts Odo to resign. Major Kira does talk him into going with them into the Gamma Q

The Search, the novelization of the two-part episode which launched DS9's third season, is a better novelization than as an episode. Diane Carey, the author of several Star Trek novels (both novelizations and originals), offers her opinion on what characters are thinking and feeling, whereas the episode offers no hint of this. Maybe her opinion is right, maybe not, but it works.The story opens with Sisko bringing a new warship to DS9 in hopes that it will help the Federation in their eventual battle with the Dominion. When they take it for a trial run after exiting the other side of the wormhole, they get a chance to test its firepower. Eventually the crew is split into three groups.Odo's portion is the most intriguing as he learns a little about his past/origin. The ultimate resolution to this revelation is a bit weak, but the build-up is entertaining. There are a few minor surprises with the ending, but nothing earth-shattering. Overall the novelization warrants a four star rating, whereas the episode itself is only average and would warrant a three star rating.