Time's Enemy (Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Invasion, Book 3)

Goodness, this is still my favorite book ever since I bought it in '96. DS9 was not my favorite series until I read this book. LA Graf has truly written a masterpiece when it comes to character inteactions, plot twists (there's a KILLER one at the end... I'll let you read to find out what it is!), and grasp of 24th century thinking in the way of time travel and how everything works on a starship. I have reread this book over 10 times since I purchased it, and I find something new everytime I read it that sparks my imagination.I know that this is the largest book in the Invasion! series, but I hope that more people will buy this series, Invasion!, and see what all the hype is about for this DS9 book! It's excellent, and you won't want to put it down! Happy reading!

I recently bought a brand new copy of this book because the original copy I had is falling apart. Pages are falling out, it is water-damaged, it's been with me through two back surgeries and one baby being born. This book has seen much action since I bought it in the fall of 1996. Why? Oh, because it's my favorite book of all time. Here's why:This is the best-written DS9 book I have ever read as of this writing.It has time-travel elements--I love time travel. And, the writers have avoided a time-travel paradox. It is very detailed and portrays the characters accurately.I can even understand the technobabble, because, as this book was co-written by an actual scientist, it is a combination of ST and real-world science.The alien horde is appropriately scary, gross, and apparently unstoppable (like the Borg *used* to be).This is the book that made Jadzia Dax my favorite ST character.A small summary--A 5,000 year old version of a crippled Defiant is found embedded in a comet and towed to Starbase One, still embedded in the cometary ice, and allowed to sit while the ice melts from around the ship. The remains of Dr. Bashir and Captain Sisko are aboard, as well as the Dax symbiont in stasis.Captain Sisko, Dr. Bashir and Jadzia Dax are summoned to Starbase One and ordered NOT to bring the Defiant. Admiral Judith Hayman, an old friend of Curzon Dax, asks Bashir and Sisko to review data records. Sisko realizes that the data records are from the Defiant, and Dr Bashir is the one who figures out that it's a future Defiant. They both conclude that the Defiant was caught in a future battle where the only survivors were Dr Bashir and the Dax symbiont.Jadzia was brought along because the Dax symbiont is the only living survivor of the battle that took place 5,000 years in the past, and she is the only one who can communicate with the symbiont and find out what happened. Turns out, Dax has spent too long in stasis and is almost incoherent. The message they get is rather chilling: Don't go through the wormhole. Capture one of the invading aliens and talk to what they've eaten.Starfleet authorizes a study of the wormhole to determine what is going to happen/has already happened that sends the Defiant back in time and destroys the wormhole. A science ship, crewed by Vulcan time specialists, wormhole physicists, one Starfleet cadet (another time-travel specialist), and captained by a very frosty Vulcan female, T'Kreng, a wormhole ("quantum singularity") specialist, heads out of Starbase One with Captain Sisko, Dr Bashir and Jadzia Dax onboard. The wormhole begins acting really wierd and Captain Sisko revokes all travel permits, prompting T'Kreng to transport Sisko, Dax, Bashir and the "kidnapped" Dax symbiont to DS9 and enter the wormhole illegally. When they get to the Gamma quadrant side of the wormhole, their ship is attacked and all the crew are killed, except for the Starfleet cadet, who was put into a medical stasis chamber soon after T'Kreng entered the wormh

It took me 8 pages into Chapter 1 of "Time's Enemy" to know that Book Three in the Invasion series was better than its immediate predecessor. By the time I finished the book I was stunned to realize that "L. A. Graf" (sci-fi author Julia Ecklar and university scientist Karen Rose Cercone) have written as fine a Star Trek novel as I have ever read. The hook on "Time's Enemy" is itself an absolute stunner. Captain Sisko, Jadzia Dax and Dr. Bashir are clandestinely called to Starbase One by a Starfleet Admiral to look at log records. Sisko recognize them as the final moments of his ship, the Defiant, under his command. The trio are then shown the Defiant, buried in ice for over 5,000 years in Earth's Oort Cloud. Aboard are the remains of Sisko and Bashir, as well as the Dax Trill, still alive after all that time in a stasis chamber. On its last mission the Defiant was blasted into the past. Whatever happened, this time line must be avoided at all costs. There are two major plot lines in "Time's Enemy" with two trios of Deep Space Nine characters involved in each. Sisko, Bashir and Jadzia try to figure out what happened when the Defiant went through the worm hole and take steps to change its tragic future history. Meanwhile, Major Kira, Odo and Chief O'Brien are dealing with the threat of sabotage on Deep Space Nine. I appreciate that Graf did not feel obligated to work in all the other DS9 characters (Quark is only seen briefly, Jake and others not at all). I also thought the use of science in this novel was well grounded and theoretically viable, which is amazing because the only physics book I ever read was "The Physics of Star Trek" and that stuff was all way over my head. However, the most impressive part of the book for me was the characterization, not only of each individual character but more importantly of their relationships with each other (except for the usually unflappable Sisko being so short with the Vulcan scientist T'Kreng, but then she is new).In terms of the Invasion series Book Three finally gets around to answering the question of who (or what) cast out the Furies millennia ago. At first I found specific way of saving the known universe that Sisko and crew come up with to be a bit of a stretch, but there was a very memorable little payoff that makes it all worthwhile. "Time's Enemy" is a well written novel that can stand on its own, so if you are interested in just DS9 and not the entire Invasion series will present no problems to you whatsoever. All I know is that I do not read all of the Star Trek novels, but that I going to check out anything else written under the Graf name. I highly recommend this book.

Commander Sisko, Jadzia-Dax, and Doctor Julian Bashir are summoned by Star Fleet to examine material recovered from an intercepted block of space-debris. This turns out to be the remains of the Defiant and her crew. But from thousands of years in the past. With time against them, Sisko and his colleagues, with assistance from the surviving old, old Dax, have to figure out what happened to the Defiant, and stop the event from happening. I was very impressed with this book's quality of writing; something I don't really expect much of from TV-tie-in titles. ( Okay, K. W. Jeter does good ones, too ). The only letdown was the use, yet again, of the 'Alien' theme, which has by now, I would have thought, been more than flogged to death.

After the extremely disappointing "Soldiers of Fear" which was a TNG book-go figure it would be disappointing. Since Deep Space Nine is THE best Star Trek series(look at Voyager), any book involving Deep Space Nine would automatically be worth a read. Well, except "The Laertian Gamble" and "Vengeance." Anyway, the single most innovative plot twist(and that's saying alot, since the whole book is a giant plot twist), was probably the Dax symbiont. All the characters are believable, and I can see as well as hear them and their actions. This book explains how the Furies' were driven away, which in my opinion was a need-to-know. Anyway, this is a breath of fresh air after the horrible "Soldiers..." BUY THIS BOOK!