The Fall: Peaceable Kingdoms (Star Trek)

Actually a little disappointed with this offering, especially after the excellent "A Ceremony of Losses" and "The Poisoned Chalice" made for some exciting and true-to-character reads. The [SPOILERS HERE]
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"alternate Bajoran identity" angle of President Ishan just seemed overused, especially after it had been done in the TV series with Dukat/Anjol and later with Iliana Ghemor/The Intendant. Also it would have been nice to see how they got Galif jav Velk to spill his info and involvement in the whole thing. The biggest thing that was left hanging and didn't get ANY time in this book was the Kira/Altek Dans storyline. I guess they're going to leave why Altek appeared in DS9 and what's going on with Taran'atar to another line of books (hooray, keep writing them, Relaunch authors!) but I was hoping for some clever involvement of these two in the overarching Bacco assassination storyline.

I also would have liked to get at least one little section describing how the latest Andorian citizen and "nephew" of Emissary ch'Nuillen was adjusting to life on his new homeworld.

The good part about this offering was Dayton Ward has all the TNG characters and their ways of speaking down pat. I could "hear" every TNG character in my head in the written dialogue. Appreciate all the little nods to earlier TNG episodes and other ST series, including Kirk's advice to Picard about getting promoted. There's a lot of material to keep straight in this universe, and finding all the tie-ins and references was a treat.

I have to agree with most of the reviewers here. The final installment of The Fall has no real bang, even though there is some plot and there is some real character of the Cardassian doctor and "Ishun". The final nail in the coffin for the aggressive interim Federation President also seems, to me, quite contrived and out of left field. I don't think it was really necessary, given there was the logical and obvious link between him and the True way and setting up the death of previous Federation president (which is itself was a poorly written plot- anyone with a brain could tell "security" as anything but)

At least it ends with Starfleet returning "To boldly go where no one has gone before". I've had enough of Federation politics. Let's get back to the adventures of interstellar exploration.

PEACEABLE KINGDOMS is the final entry in the five-book FALL event running through the Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Titan and Aventine books. Because of this, the book is in a slightly awkward place of having to wrap up a number of storylines while still being interesting on its own. And the book basically fails at both these things. It seems the biggest mistake of THE FALL was anyone in editorial thinking these books should in any way be stand alone stories. We're treated to any number of internal logic and continuity failures as well as sections that flat out don't make much sense given the larger narrative. Any sense of nuance to the main antagonist is completely lost and any sense of mystery surrounding him is either patently obvious or absurdly overdesigned.

The books has two narrative tracks with a third that kind of disappears. The first track follows the Enterprise as it travels from ho-hum assignment to ho-hum assignment. While we get some insight into Picard's feelings at these events, many of them feel... useless. We get two scenes of Picard and Co. meeting with other unhappy Starfleet Captains around the quadrant. While they do flesh out the conflict, neither of them are plot essential. Even the one that has shades of meaning ends up just being a way to quickly make a connection instead of having any weight. For the majority of the book Picard is just flying around waiting for answers to fall into his lap. It's very strange how sidelined the Enterprise has been during The Fall. The second is a rather lengthy and bloated story following Dr. Crusher as she gathers evidence against the President Pro Temp. At almost every turn the writing of this section undercuts itself. A Cardassian scientist sets up a meeting with Crusher. Halfway through her travels, Crusher gets a message from the scientist that tells her why they were supposed to meet. Why would that happen if the scientist was afraid of being killed? The Cardassian spends about half the time wiping tears away from his eyes and making pronouncements like "History will judge us for our actions!" or "My people did far worse." The character is variously described as weak but then overpowers two people later. This section wouldn't have been bad, but it went on way too long with very little added to it. The characters have all the evidence they need then do nothing while that evidence is destroyed and then have to go find backup evidence. There is a big subplot with Riker but almost half of it takes place off screen for no discernible reason.

There are two wonderful scenes late in the novel which really do shine through. The first is a sort of coda to THE FALL, and really to the post 2005 Star Trek novel universe, in which Picard, Riker and Akaar talk about Starfleet's purpose. It's a great scene with well chosen words and great character. If this had been the theme running throughout the book, it would have been stellar. The other scene is the epilogue in which the new Federation President gives a really nice speech to their staff. It's simple and effective, but it also hammers home the theme of the coda.

The biggest issue with this one is that it's just boring. Not a lot happens. But when something does happen it is either predictable or so badly telegraphed the characters don't feel like they've earned the win. The book is also... messy. Picard and Worf are depicted as chuckling way too often. After the big reveal of the major antagonist pulling a Martin Guerre, the characters struggled to figure out why an identity swap was even necessary. Their solution is basic a shrug of the shoulders. We then have a flashback in which the character who swapped identities tells us he doesn't know why it was done. How did this ever pass muster? The characters lampoon their own situation! What Mr. Ward reveals of the conspiracy surrounding the fall is at turns dumb and others way too large to be effective. It just doesn't make sense that this is a thing that would happen in Star Trek.

In the end, THE FALL ends up reading like a badly choreographed event. The first book doesn't feel attached to it in any way, the second book does capitalize off events of the series but does it's own thing, the third book ignores the first book almost completely despite being in the same setting, the fourth book does the heavy lifting for the series and the fifth ends with a pretty tepid reveal. Scenes are replayed book-to-book which don't look similar. At the end of Book 3 Dr. Bashir has been forcibly removed from Andoria and is in a Federation jail, at the end of Book 4 he's back on Andoria after being sprung from jail by the Andorians, in Book 5 it's mentioned that he's going back to Federation jail. Why did the jail break happen in book 4? Why is Bashir's fate left up in the air when everyone else's is summed up in one line? Why wasn't the conspiracy better fleshed out amongst all 5 books? Why are we to be believe that Ishan pushed out the previous Bajoran senator who a major character in the DS9-Relaunch and had a nice role in Articles of the Federation? Just for the plot? There seem to be no ramifications, no pronouncements. It's all just a thing that happened.

In the end, this is second worst book in the Fall. I would rate them as follows:
1. THE CRIMSON SHADOW by Una McCormack
2. THE POISONED CHALICE by James Swallow
3. A CEREMONY OF LOSSES by David Mack
4. PEACEABLE KINGDOMS by Dayton Ward
5. REVELATION AND DUST by David R. George III

I loved this series and this book provided a fitting ending. Excellent read, I couldn't put the book down. Great for any Trekkies.

The Fall series was superbly planned out and is a must-read. The first four books were extreme page-turners, and set up for a fantastic finish. This book did not lack its exciting moments, especially in the second half. It is slow-moving at points, but in the end does not disappoint.

The narrative style is tedious at times, with way too much explanation by the narrator. This can be helpful to remind us of obscure characters or fine points from a previous book, but it seems the entire plot is repeated over and over again, as though the reader couldn't follow what was going on without the narrator pausing the story rehash it all. That being said, the story does pick up later on, with dialogue and action taking over. Not as strong as the other four books in the series, but still definitely worth reading.

Some side-stories begun in other books, most notably the first, are left untouched though, and I am hoping this will be addressed in upcoming books, particularly focusing on DS9 characters.

I enjoyed The Fall series and was excited to reach the end. Bringing such an epic undertaking to a close would be no easy task, so kudos to Mr. Ward for his contribution, but there was little excitement, suspense or intrigue left for book five. I felt like it didn't get going until page 50, and there were still a hundred pages left when it had already been made clear exactly how the book would end.

Good writing and familiar characters make for a pleasant read.

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW [Assumes you have read Books 1-4]

I was really hoping for something more than what we got here. On the plus side, this book is solely about the Enterprise crew (+ Riker) which is a nice change of pace. The threads of stories that have been woven from the beginning all come together here and we get a lot of great moments of drama and adventure. Nothing is worse in a grand epic like this when the story logic fails and I have to say that does not happen here, though are a few eye-rolling "Really?" moments. The mystery sounding President Isham is brought to a somewhat satisfactory close but be warned - I guarantee whatever theory you have coming into this book about who he really is is wrong.

Unfortunately, the rather looming problems plaguing this book are three-fold. The first is the characters, as in they are flat. Too many of them sound and act the same - slightly witty banter abounds in this book. In fact, two of the main characters in the story I kept getting confused because they were virtually indistinguishable. And once again Worf and Geordi do virtually nothing. Second is the wasted time spent on uninteresting dialog that does nothing to advance the story or develop anything meaningful about the characters. The third is the pacing. There is a long story involving one character that really goes on far too long meanwhile the Enterprise engages in something rather dramatic that should have received much more page space. Instead, it felt like a final Hail Mary when it really should have felt like a slow burn build-up as the weight of the entire story hung in the balance. I've read worse endings but there was a lot that could have been done here and it was just left on the table.

Great series,only gets better as it goes

A very good book so far.