The Badlands, Book Two of Two

Star Trek: The Badlands #2

by Susan Wright

Located perilously near the Cardassian border, the turbulent region of space known as the Badlands has been an interstellar hazard to navigation for at least two generations. Many starships have been lost amidst its violent plasma storms, but the true danger may only be beginning!

Before she began her historic sojourn in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Kathryn Janeway led the USS Voyager into the Badlands in pursuit of a renegade Maquis vessel. There she encountered the same threatening and inexplicable phenomena that had previously endangered both Kirk and Jean-Luc Picard. Now, detoured from her mission by an urgent Cardassian distress call, Janeway finally uncovers the origin of the hidden menace!

Armed with Janeway's hard-won knowledge, Captain Benjamin Sisko must deal with the exposed threat once and for all. But first the USS Defiant must battle both the Dominion and the Romulan Empire for control of an unleashed power source that could devastate the entire Alpha Quadrant!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Media Tie In, Ebooks

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

See also S.L. Wright

Susan Wright (aka S.L. Wright) is a USA Today Bestselling author of more than two dozen novels and nonfiction books. She writes New Adult Contemporary Romance novels, as well as Urban Fantasy, Fantasy, Science Fiction and Star Trek novels, and has been published by Pocket Books, Penguin Group, St. Martin’s Press and Kensington.

Reviews

[Louie the Mustache Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Badlands Star Trek novels were pretty good. Sometimes the complexity of the plot takes away from my enjoyment of the novel, especially when compared as a whole to the actual full-length novels. The Badlands, both book 1 and 2, include the four Star Trek milieus in short stories where each show attended the part of the galaxy known as the Badlands.

Star Trek: TOS (the Original Series) and Star Trek: TNG (The Next Generation) contributions to the Badlands were shared in Book 1. It amounts to not-so-good stories that are formulaic and short that propose a theoretical quantum singularity. Here in Book 2, Voyager has an interesting story that actually refers to before the Caretaker episodes (season 1: episodes 1 and 2.) The Maquis figure prominently in that short story.

The last story is a Deep Space Nine episode and is clearly one of the later episodes, toward the last season or season six. The Defiant goes into the Delta Quadrant to fight the Jem Hadar and the Founders. Fun stories, but insufficient for me. I generally prefer MORE story rather than less. This last one is the best and too short to tease.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like the previous book in this duology, there are two short stories of about 120 pages each that focus on two of the franchise and their dealings with the infamous Badlands made famous in Deep Space Nine where the Marquis hide.

The first story focuses on Voyager and directly leads into the ship and crew being whisked away by the Caretaker. The book begins with Chakotay and his Marquis crew causing chaos for the Cardassians and then running into trouble. Freshly launched Voyager hears the SOS from the Cardassians and goes to help. Tom Paris gets much of the focus in this tale and it's neat to get backstory on him and several of the crewmembers who don't survive their unexpected trip into another quadrant.

The second story focuses on Odo requesting the Defiant to go into the Badlands to see what caused the young changeling to receive a blast of radiation that killed it. Sisko agrees, as do many members of the station, and they set out to investigate. They run into a Romulan ship that causes them trouble. This was good, with the Bashir/Changeling getting most of the focus. This is the only time I'm aware of that this character was expanded beyond the small screen and it was neat to see what it thought of Odo and the solids.

This doesn't get a five-star rating because though it was extremely enjoyable and I recommend it to all Trek fans, it didn't floor me. Still, definitely worth checking out.

[Adam]

A more engaging read than part 1, I really enjoyed the pre-history of Voyager's story, especially the insights into Paris and Janeway. The DS9 story was also fun to read, as I especially enjoyed the soft focus it put on Odo.

[Rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

2023 Review 73. Star Trek The Badlands Book 2 by Susan Wright

Page Count : 256

This book concludes the crossover series that began in book 1.

Once again this book is split into 2 separate stories and this book focuses on the USS Voyager under the command of Kathryn Janeway and the USS Defiant / Deep Space Nine under the command of Benjamin Sisko.

The first story in this book focuses on the USS Voyager and is set immediately prior to the events of the first episode (Caretaker Parts 1 & 2).

Part of this story focuses on the Maquis and in particular, Chakotay and his crew, explaining why at the beginning of Caretaker, they were under the attack of Gul Evek and his ship in the Badlands.

But of course, nothing goes to plan and the Maquis attack force experience what is now known as the Badlands anomaly / Badlands curse meaning that most of the ships have to abort the mission with the exception of Chakotay's ship who go on a solo attack mission.

After a while, the events of Caretaker's introduction scenes begin and the Vetar (Gul Evek's galor class warship) is damaged by a plasma storm and also experiences the Badlands anomaly sending out a distress call.

The USS Voyager enroute to the Badlands to look for Chakotay's Maquis raider receives the distress call and goes to help.

Given the information of the Vetar's position when they met the Badlands anomaly, Captain Janeway begins studying the problem and submits a theory about the cause of the Badlands Anomaly to Starfleet.

After this, Voyager proceeds with her mission and disappears into history to become the starship who went the furthest and returned.

The 2nd story focuses on the USS Defiant, Deep Space Nine and their crew under the command of Captain Benjamin Sisko.

This story is set immediately before the Dominion War and immediately after the epsiode The Begotten in which Odo is returned to being a shape shifter after the death of the infant changeling.

Odo has found out that the infant changeling was found in the Badlands and was injured by tetryon radiation (The Badlands anomaly) and then begins working with Jadzia Dax to come up with a way to end the Badlands anomaly once and for all.

Of course, the mission does not go to plan as the Romulans are up to their old tricks with a new ship and the Dominion also make an appearance.

This book is a fantastic conclusion to this short series and I loved reading it. I will definitely read it again in the future.

I cannot recommend this series of books enough.


This is my 3rd book finished during the #greatspaceread

5*
*****

[Craig · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, just pure crap. I feel like Wright had to make a deadline and she had no time to review her work and the editor didn't even read it. The Voyager story does nothing except have Janeway solve the century-long problem just before she's booted to the Delta Quadrant and then the DS9 story is borderline insulting. I think someone needed to go back and watch Deep Space Nine again. The details of events and plots are all over the place. I felt this whole series has been Chekhov's whole armory was dumped out and no one remembered to pick it up. The characters are all wrong, Dax can't stop flirting and Worf can't stop being jealous for one minute. Rom is not like himself at all and Odo is, to put simply, a pathetic child in this book worrying about what everyone thinks about him. Throw in the odd tidbit of information to show that she brushed through the source material. Then to top it all off Sisko just happened to know how to send an Artificial Quantum Singularity 10,000 light years because he has a passing familiarity on folding space...just stupid. Her worst work yet and that's including that crap Dark Passions duality.

[Gabe Waggoner · Rating 2 out of 5]

As an ever-devoted fan of Captain Janeway, I had to read this book. But I found it hard to integrate with established Trek reality. For one thing, the book refers to Captain Sisko, even though Sisko was still a commander when Voyager left the Alpha Quadrant (he wasn't promoted to captain until the end of Deep Space Nine's season 3, long after the events of "Caretaker"). Furthermore, I couldn't accept that Voyager had taken 24 hours to reach the Badlands, during which time the plot of this novella takes place. Several episodes have established that the Badlands are just a few hours' travel from the Bajoran star system (Tom Riker got the Defiant there in 6 hours, for example). I can't believe that Voyager would travel at low warp to reach the Badlands, taking far longer than standard travel time.

The story was entertaining enough, but it was implausible and, in the context of the timing of the events we saw in the show, could not have occurred.

[Stephen Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was much better than book 1. The characters were much better written than with the two Enterprise crews in the first book, although Jadzia Dax takes a while to settle. I enjoyed seeing the Voyager crew pre-Caretaker and a glimpse into life at Dominion internment camp 371 for Bashir, Martok and Tain, although I would have liked to see more. The overarching story reaches a satisfying, albeit slightly rushed, conclusion.

[Mike Grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easily engaging conclusion to the Badlands series of crossover novels. The ending has the feel that the book / series was setting up something larger while completing the issue that binds the stories together.

[Read1000books · Rating 4 out of 5]

What exactly is occuring in "The Badlands" sector, and why are the Federation, the Romulans, the Cardassians, AND the Dominion all so interested in finding out??
The first half of the book involves the starship VOYAGER and crew (prior to their unplanned trip to the Delta quadrant, for you ST chronologists out there), and the last part stars the characters from the Deep Space 9 era. Not yet having read any DS9 stories or watched the tv series (I did say "yet" didn't I?) this was a good way to dip my toe in those waters, so to speak, and it was an enjoyable read all the way through.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Easy to read, hard to put down. Filled in a few gaps from the series.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Both stories were good. The DS9 part was good for seeing things thru the eyes of the Bashir changeling.

[tom woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

Good collection of books, very well structured

And linked to the individual series, lots to think about characters and stories behind them

[Taaya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nur lose verbunden, und irgendwie mit Anti-Klimax.
Aber rein stilistisch angenehm geschrieben.

[Steven Shinder · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this more than book one. Got to see Voyager just before “The Caretaker,” as well as Odo dealing with the aftermath of “The Begotton” just before the Dominion War.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is part of a Star Trek cross over series concerning that area of space known as 'The Badlands'. The first book deals with Kirk and Picard, this book deals with Janeway and Sisko. This review is about the first half of the book.

These events take place before and during the Voyager TV pilot 'Caretaker'. We see more detail about the Maquis and Sesko's motivation. Gul Evat is a player and then we switch to Voyager and most of this is from Tom Paris' point of view. We see him as a real outcast. Everyone is rude to him or suspicious of him except Harry and Stadi. In this story he actually becomes friends with Stadi. She takes him to the holodeck where he is introduced to a simulations of Voyager's helm and he familiarizes himself with it.

One thing I have a problem with is the EMH is activated before events in Caretaker. He has said that his first memory was being activated after Voyager had been pulled into the Delta Quadrant after the medical team had been lost. This book changes those events and I'm not really sure why the author felt it was necessary to do that. They are not bad scenes but they might feel a little jarring to those fans who are insistent about what is 'canon' and what is not.

Some scenes are identical to the events in Caretaker and it ends with the flash of light and Voyager disappearing and if you what to know what happens after that...read Caretaker.

The story itself is well written and constantly moves forward. It in an interesting way to expand a familiar story.

[Jenny T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Two in the Badlands Duology dealt with Star Trek: Voyager and Deep Space Nine. The Voyager novella was the better of the two, serving as a prequel of sorts for the series. The characterization is excellent, and the Cardassians once again steal the show (though I might be slightly biased).

The Deep Space Nine novella took place at the beginning of the Dominion War. Though the characterization was again fantastic (and the voices of Dax and Odo captured PERFECTLY), the ending felt anti-climactic. We finally learn what it is causing the "Badlands curse," and there's some good politically intrigue. But I don't think the author likes Romulans very much -- they have the worst luck with their ships...

[Jimyanni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book is a telling of the events that led up to the beginning of the Voyager series in more detail than we have seen them told before; the second half is a new DS9 story. Unlike in book one of this series, these two stories meshed well and formed one continuing story that actually works well. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this book, given that I had been significantly UN-impressed with book one of the series.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 4 out of 5]

MUCH much better than volume 1...as if Susan Wright managed to (1) take inspiration from the superior storytelling found in the world of DS9, and (2) took the opportunity to add some much needed emotional trauma to the otherwise plastic-perfect people of Voyager. A very satisfying read, and a very satisfying tie-in to much of what we see on-screen in certain episodes.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's so easy to write things in retrospect....

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

2000 grade B-

series book BD2

Multi-genre Trek

[Mikael Kuoppala · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly better than the first one, but still a bit too underwhelming to have a lasting impact.