The alternate universes plot lines have never been my favourite in the Star Trek world and I was a tad dismayed to find out this was one of them. It perked up in Part Two but like most of the DS9 novels of late leaves you with a to be continued which is a tad irritating. Basically it fulfils my desire to see more of the characters that I was addicted to on t.v. ( )

After God knows how long, we've finally gotten another installment of the Deep Space Nine relaunch. It's a flip book, which is a pretty neat idea: Side One has Kira on the cover and picks up from the events of Warpath. This side is slight, but what's there works well. The strands of the last few books are finally coming together in a clear fashion, and this book introduces some neat ideas of its own, especially in the knock-your-socks-off prologue. And that cliffhanger! Subtle, yet effective. Woods's command of the DS9 characters is perfect, too-- I look forward to seeing where she takes the story in next year's The Soul Key. Side Two, the majority of the book, has Iliana Ghemor on the cover and follows her life from early adulthood to a point during "What You Leave Behind", filling in a whole heck of a lot of gaps. It's expository backstory, but it works, since understanding Iliana is fundamental to the current route of the relaunch, and because Woods does it so well. Iliana's course in life is entirely manipulated by outside forces, feels almost inevitable, and yet I was never disinterested in what was going on. And some stuff is still unexplained, leaving even more to look forward to in The Soul Key.