Star Trek: Mirror Universe: Glass Empires

Star Trek: Mirror Universe #1

by David Mack, Greg Cox, Mike Sussman

There are moments glimpsed only in shadow, where darkness rules and evil incarnate thrives. You hope against hope that in your lifetime, evil is relegated to the shadows. But what if it wasn't? What if you lived in a universe where your life was measured only by what you could do for the Empire? What would you do to survive? Would you sell your soul to free yourself? If you were offered the chance to rule, would you seize it? If you could free your universe from the darkness but only at the cost of your life, would you pay that price? Star Enterprise® She seized power in a heartbeat, daring to place herself against all the overlords of the Empire. Empress Hoshi Sato knows the future that could be; now all she has to do is make sure it never happens. For her to rule, she must hold sway not only over the starship from the future but also over her warlords, the resistance, and her Andorian husband. As quickly and brutally as Hoshi seized power, imperial rule is taken from her. Her only chance to rule again is to ally herself with a lifelong foe, and an alien. Star Trek® One man can change the future, but does he dare? Spock, intrigued by the vision of another universe's Federation, does what no Vulcan, no emperor, has ever seize power in one blinding stroke of mass murder. And at the same instant he gains imperial power, Spock sows the seeds for the Empire's downfall. Is this a form of Vulcan madness, or is it the coolly logical plan of a man who knows the price his universe must pay for its freedom? Star The Next Generation® Humanity is a pitiful collection of enslaved, indentured, and abused peoples. No one dares to question the order, except at peril of their lives. One man survives by blinding himself to the misery around him. However, Jean-Luc Picard resists, just once. And in that one instant he unlocks a horror beyond the tyranny of the Alliance. Can a man so beaten down by a lifetime of oppression stop the destruction?

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Space, American, Adventure

464 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2007

About the author

David Mack is the New York Times bestselling author of 39 novels of science-fiction, fantasy, and adventure, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies.

Beyond novels, Mack's writing credits span several media, including television (for produced episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), games, and comic books.

Follow him on Twitter @davidalanmack or like his Facebook page.

Reviews

[Lexxi Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of two short stories and one novel length work packaged together and set in the Star Trek Mirror Universe (as in, the one seen in various episodes throughout the various Star Trek series in which characters would pop over to an alternate universe, meet a version of themselves, and be shocked, shocked!, at what they found - finding a Terran Empire instead of a Federation).

Mirror Universe stories tend to go four ways:
1) Federation personnel end up in Mirror universe, and react to it, are shocked by it, return to Federation space (more the television episodes);
2) Mirror universe people (who never leave the Mirror universe), after encountering Federation people or learning of Federation people, react to the concept of the Federation and attempt to take what learned and apply it to themselves; this goes one of two ways: 1) they attempt to redirect their own universe to try to lead it to Federation like situation; 2) use the knowledge gained to better themselves, and take over stuff (more the short stories/books);
3) rarer - Mirror universe people end up in Federation space and react. Rare as most of the time the Mirror universe people seem to die almost instantly when they end up in Federation space, weird, eh? So this one involves Mirror universe people reacting and living in Federation space. As noted, rare. (as seen in one television series);
4) ultra rare - Mirror universe people living their lives . . . . with no contact what-so-ever with Federation space or any other alternate reality. I've only seen this one in one fanfiction.

Well, this specific book, as noted, contains three stories. All by different authors and/or author teams. One story really is not a sequel of the prior story, but whatever occurred in that prior story provides changes the next story has to live with (as in, first story shows an individual taking over the Terran Empire; next story has descendants of that empress).

The first story in the book is an Star Trek Enterprise Mirror Universe story. Before the start of the story, the I.S.S. Enterprise encountered the U.S.S. Defiant - a ship from the future, an alternate future. Federation people are never seen in the story, though Federation technology is - since the Enterprise crew takes over the much more advanced Defiant ship (empty, again pre-story, by the Defiant crew going insane and killing each other). One of the Enterprise crew, Hoshi, kills, takes over ship, flies to Earth, takes over Empire. The end. There's much more to it than that, but . . ..

I gave that first story a rating of 3.8-something. 3.83.

Second story is an Star Trek The Original Series Mirror Universe story. It builds upon prior story, but also builds on an episode on the original series. Another pre-story issue. No Federation people seen in the story, though several of the Federation Enterprise crew, pre-story, were encountered by Mirror Universe Enterprise crew members. From a mind meld MU Spock did on FU McCoy, Spock leans the truth of Federation Universe. Uses knowledge to go about taking over ship/empire/leading/redirecting/etc.etc.

I gave this book length work a rating of something like . . . I don't remember. Ah, there. 4.03.

Third Mirror Universe story is set in Star Trek TNG time period. Again builds on prior stories, though this time there is no pre-story Federation Unvierse encounter by TNG people. Stars Picard as an archaeologist working for a Cardassian (there's reasons). He's wandering the universe in a tiny little ship called 'Stargazer. Somewhere along the line, the 'Resistance', decides that the best course of action would be to search out and contact the Borg. Things do not go well for this plan. Story kind of ends abruptly.

I hadn't rated this story before coming here to write something. Hmm. I rate it . . . 3.73.

So:
Age of Empires by Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore (story by Mike Sussman): 3.83
The Sowrrows of Empire by David Mack: 4.03
The Worst of Both Worlds by Greg Cox: 3.73
----- 3.86333

April 12 2018

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Way past time I started reading the Mirror Universe stuff!

[Nicholas Heinjus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have always enjoyed an alternate universe story, this version is quite interesting and I'm intrigued to see where this leads.

[Yvonne Mendez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Long live the Terran Empire

I originally chose this book because it had to do with the Mirror Universe. But it was the biggest surprise when I started reading and saw that the story picks up exactly where Enterprises' episode ends, with Empress Sato. The book consists of three stories spanning from eras of Captns Archer, Kirk and Picard, fascinating travel through time and history. Great read!

[Ned Leffingwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains three stories that take place in the evil Mirror Star Trek universe. They take place in the timelines of Enterprise, the original Star Trek series, and Next Generation. The Enterprise story is a military space opera story. The middle story mimics the plot of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series with evil Spock being the central character. The last story is a pulp romp featuring Picard as Indiana Jones in space. The stories are entertaining reads for Trek fans. Be prepared for many references to classic Trek tidbits.

[Richard J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first and last stories were satisfying. The middle story, Sorrows of Empire, was just phenomenal.

[Terence · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's been close to 2 decades since I've done any serious reading of any Star Trek novels. The box in Mom's basement was full of TOS novels and a few TNGs but I had passed on to other things before the genre had become the cottage industry it is now.*

On a whim, I wikied "star trek novels" and got an entry that printed out at 40 pages. Up through the early '80s most of the titles were familiar, and many had been read; after that it was pretty much terra incognita; a final frontier where this man (at any rate) had not gone before.

As my myriad fans here on GR know, I've been going through one of my periodic Trek phases for going on several months now and have been sampling the newer novels that sound interesting. Glass Empires is an omnibus collection of three novels set in the Mirror Universe of the TOS episode "Mirror, Mirror," where Kirk et al. find themselves in an alternate universe where the Federation is a tyrannical Empire and their counterparts are little better than bloody-handed pirates. The first novel takes place during the "Star Trek: Enterprise" era, Mack's novel recounts the Mirror Spock's efforts to take over the Empire, and the final novel takes place during the "Next Generation" era, after the collapse of the Empire.

Age of the Empress - 2 stars: This novel picks up right after the events at the end of the "Star Trek: Enterprise" Mirror Universe two-parter episode. Hoshi Sato murders Captain Archer and seizes control of Defiant, a Federation Starship from our universe that disappeared in the TOS episode "The Tholian Web." Using Defiant's superior technology, she proclaims herself Empress and the rest of the book recounts her efforts to secure that position.

It's...serviceable. Not a bad read but not very memorable. And if you haven't seen at least the "Enterprise" episodes referred to above, you'll be completely lost.

The Sorrows of Empire - 3 stars: This is the best of the three and you can see my review here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64... as I read it in a standalone edition.

The Worst of Both Worlds - 1 star - is also the worst of the books. It's full of continuity errors and a story that surpasses even this devoted Trekkie's ability to suspend disbelief. I'll only list a few of my problems with this waste of reading time:

* Within the space of five pages, a planet goes from being Calder II to Camus II and then back to being Calder II.
* A disruptor suddenly becomes a phaser. For a Trekkie, there's a clear distinction (trust me).
* The Mirror Picard jumps head first down a shaft that turns out to be 200 meters long, falls into a pile of sludge and gets off with a few bruises. Quite an impressive pile of sludge...
* There's a scene where a character warns against using disruptors because it will alert the bad guys to their presence but then a page later uses a disruptor.
* "The jarring impact bulldozed the breath from her lungs." This is typical of the writing quality throughout but for some reason this sentence in particular offended me.
* Mirror Picard tractor beams an Iconian probe (which is 600 meters across) and drags it off to the final battle with the Borg using a beat-up Danube-class runabout. For the non-Trekkie, you'll have to trust me that this is absurd even for "Star Trek."
* Mirror Picard "just happens" to have equipped his runabout with the Bajoran solar sails seen in an episode of "Deep Space 9" so when he has to jettison his warp core and nacelles, he still can make it to the climactic battle.
* After the final battle, Mirror Picard salvages another warp core from a destroyed ship and warps away - BUT HE STILL DIDN'T HAVE ANY NACELLES!!! Gahhhh!!!!

For the Star Trek fan, I'd recommend Mack's book and give a qualified thumb's up to Ward and Dilmore's effort (if you've got absolutely nothing else to read) but avoid Cox's dreck.

*Two reasons for that, primarily: (1) The writing quality was too often subpar for me to waste time and/or money on the books, and the good authors - like McIntyre, Ford, Hambly - went on to establish themselves outside of the niche. (2) After Kirk/Spock/McCoy, there just really wasn't anyone else I was interested in character-wise, and Paramount took the series in a very dissatisfying direction (ugh).

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of the three short stories in this book, the middle one is the best and gets the three stars. The other two stories are completely forgettable and read like mediocre fan fiction.

I thought maybe I couldn't get into the first because it's an Enterprise story, and I've never been a fan, but really the plot is ludicrous and there is no backstory for those who didn't see the episodes that provide the jumping off point.

The Picard story has him acting in ways that don't make sense for the character (I know it is alternate universe Picard, but he should still have the essence of the Picard we know and love). Really, how could anyone think asking the Borg for help is a good idea?

The Spock story, however, is well-written and has an interesting premise. What if Spock's vision of a peaceful Federation in (our) alternate universe moved him to take over the Empire... in order to destroy it and make way for something better?

Read the Spock story, skip or skim the other two.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three interconnecting stories set in the mirror universe. The first is set after Hoshi takes control of the Enterprise, and looks at her climb to power. The 2nd looks at how Spock destroyed the Empire. The 3rd looks at Picard as a treasure hunter who finds the borg. Each story feels like it could have been a full novel in its own right. It was nice to see who Picard would be in the mirror universe. A good read.

[Chad]

Minor spoilers.

Love it or hate it, the mirror universe is probably one of the most widely used narrative in the Star Trek universe and has generated some high quality episodes all across the spectrum of varying shows. Still, I have never ventured beyond the confines of what is on the screen and this book represents my first real voyage into Star Trek’s partner universe.

I was impressed with how much time and how much of the franchises that this book is able to cover. Readers who are familiar with the franchise are going to find a TON of brilliant references to characters and plot points

The book is split into three shorter stories. The first is a continuation from the mirror episode from Enterprise and picks up the thread with now-Empress Sato. This was probably my least favorite of the three but still really enjoyable. The cast gets some good story time as well as some of the secondary characters. Shran has a great role in this. There is a good story involving the evolving relations between Terrans and Vulcans, it was just also a tad predictable, in my opinion.

The second story features Mirror Spock, following his encounter with Prime Kirk and company and this was the best section for me. I loved the portrayal of Spock trying to bring about positive change based on his brief view of the Prime universe and I thought it was spectacular how he took on an almost Corleone-like role in his ability to constantly stay ahead of his enemies. Really great story and usage of some classic Trek characters.

Finally we have the section involving Mirror Picard, something I was really interested in since TNG never tapped into that universe. They didn’t disappoint, showing a great turn on that character and bringing into the fold a legendary Star Trek villain.

Overall - outstanding book. Some readers are going to have a problem with accepting that so many plot points and events and characters are drawn together to be given mirror versions. Why would the Genesis project exist in the mirror universe, just as an example. My opinion is that the key to enjoying the mirror universe doesn’t come from trying to make it work perfectly with the canon of the franchise. Think of this as taking the pieces of the Star Trek universe and using them to build a completely new plot.

What’s the key to the mirror universe? Take a load off, relax and try to have a good time.

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three novellas telling stories from the, quite insane, Star Trek "mirror" universe. A universe that has all of our favourite characters, but everything is very different. First introduced in the original Star Trek TV series (and giving us the classic image of evil Spock with a goatee), it was revisited several times in Deep Space Nine and then once in Enterprise.

These stories make attempts to fill in the gaps and create a larger history for that universe. The three tales take place across different eras in time: Enterprise, The Original Series and The Next Generation.

Age of the Empress: an Enterprise-era story that picks up immediately from the end of the related episodes and continues Hoshi's tale. It's very dramatic, as with most stuff set in the mirror universe and pretty good fun. I'm not the biggest fan of Enterprise and have very little love for these characters, but these "evil" versions of them have a lot more spirit. Lots of action and double-crosses, silly but I liked.

The Sorrows of Empire: this energetic and political story follows the actions of Spock after the episode 'Mirror, Mirror'. It's grandiose and covers several decades, incorporating characters and events from a number of episodes and films. A bit hard to follow at times due to how fast it moves and how abstract a number of the political ideas are. Spock himself seems more stoic than usual and hard to get a handle on.

The Worst of Both Worlds: probably the silliest, but it's also the most fun. Picard is an amateur archaeologist/adventurer under the thumb of the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance when he gets caught up with the rebellion and ends up hunting down the Borg.

The mirror universe is an odd place, often pushed to the extreme. Life is cheap and nobody is trustworthy. That sounds fun at first, but it does get tiresome. All of these stories have a high entertainment factor, but none of them were really all that compelling to me. The Spock story in particular is well plotted and it is quite fun to understand how all the things we grew familiar with in the TV depictions happened.

[David Berkowitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Glass Empires is not really a novel. Rather, it is a set of three interconnected novellas with different writers/teams for each section. All of the writers have a lot of experience writing in the Trek Universe and this gives lots of consistency to the narratives.

The action takes place completely in the Mirror Universe, so while there are a lot of familiar characters they are definitely NOT the characters of the TV series from which they are known. Part of the fun in the stories is seeing what characteristics of the characters remain constant.

The story follows the fate of humanity through the mirror timeline from Enterprise (following their Mirror Universe episodes) through the TOS Era following Mirror, Mirror to roughly the time of The Undiscovered County and on to roughly the time frame of Best of Both Worlds in TNG.

While there are some fun moments in the stories, I found it lacking in many ways. What spoiled it for me was far too much "fan service." There is a lot of dialog that appeared on the small screen or the films, though generally in different circumstances. The stories go out of their way to include worlds and races we know from the Prime Universe. As such, it breaks little new ground. Which may be exactly the target of the project.

And just because that doesn't work for me doesn't mean that it won't work for you.

One additional thing : this was written before the Discovery series. Don't expect any consistency with events from that series' Mirror Universe.

Recommended only to the most die hard of Trek fans.

[Ann Feutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glass Empires features two "short" stories (about 100 pages each) and one novella/novel length story. Among the contributors to this compendium are trusted Trek authors - Dayton Ward, David Mack, and Greg Cox.

Book 1 is Age of the Empress and it uses ENT "In A Mirror Darkly, Part 2" as it's launch point. Hoshi Sato has become Empress of the Terran Empire and essentially has to deal with push back from her enemies and her Andorian husband...Schran. My favorite part was definitely getting to see more of MU T'Pol.

Book 2 is set during TOS, but also builds upon the previous story in some ways because we see Empress Hoshi Sato III. This is the longer story and definitely has the best plot and character development. I particularly enjoyed the role that Saavik played because women-with-knives are generally badass.

Book 3 was definitely my least favorite, though there were a few lines that made me laugh out loud. We got to see Picard as an Indiana Jones-type character that is employed by a Cardassian to secure powerful artifacts. Vash returns as a cell leader of the Resistance. There's also an appearance by a Borg cube...and the resolution to that was frustrating (especially since I just finished the Destiny trilogy.

I've heard that Book 2 has been expanded into a longer novel so I'm curious to see what has been added. I'm also hoping to read more of the Mirror Universe collections.

[Vic Page · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think the biggest flaw for me when it comes to the mirror universe is that I don't care what happens in the mirror universe. This book is really good, especially how brutal the Sorrows of Empire is, which is Spock's rise to power and destruction of the Terran Empire. Picard's storyline (Indiana Jones vibes aside) doesn't seem to have a lot of purpose - except I suppose he's going to find Spock's information depositories? Idk. At least Vash has a purpose in the mirror universe that isn't just to warn the audience it's about to be a boring episode.
For some reason I left the first book to last but that was the least exciting one. Hoshi Sato is pretty cool but nothing really happened in the whole book.

[Donavon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Each book/story rating:

Age of Empress - Enterprise era - ***** - Empress Sato rise to full power

Sorrows of Empire - TOS era - **** - the whole era of Emperor Spock

The Worst of Both Worlds -TNG era - *** - Picard as rebel archeologist was interesting. Liked Mirror versions of non-main TNG characters.

[Benjamin Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the three stories in this book, the middle one taking place in the TOS timeline, revolving around Spock was the best and most thorough and deep. The first takes place during Enterprise and follows the line of Empress Sato. The last is Picard as Indians Jones. They were all enjoyable and different takes on the Mirror universe.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first mirror universe novel (collab)! Not half bad. A fun romp through the ST universe. We watch Mr Spock take over following the arrival of the 'good' Kirk in the mirror universe. Spock rises to become the emperor, creates a democratic republic, which then falls in order to in the future, create a stronger Republic. We also see Picard meet the Borg!

[Kami Neely · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. Three stories in three times of Star Trek history. Age of the Empress is the first and most complete story, a solid 4 stars. The Sorrows of Empire is 3 or 3.5, a little short on details at times. The third - The Worst of Both Worlds is scanty and incomplete and only 2 stars. Disappointing end to the book.

[Aaron Eichler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply amazing

It was interesting to read more about the
mirror universe. It was interesting to read a different version. I have read other works that contradict this timeline. My favorite part was the use of the Iconian probe the defeat the Borg.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second and third stories aren't too bad

[Dustin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn't bad. I was more interested in the story of Spock's rise to power and mirror Picard's run in with the Borg than the Hoshi story, but all three were enjoyable

[Robert Lewter · Rating 5 out of 5]

tHAT WAS QUITE ENTERTAINING.

[Danny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Mirror Universe novels!

[John Kirk · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are consistent with all of the TV episodes, but not with any of the previously published "mirror universe" novels. (They're implicitly consistent with the DS9 relaunch novels, but that remains to be proven.)

There are three stories in this anthology: I hated the Enterprise one, loved the TOS one, and thought that the TNG one was ok. The TOS one has now been expanded into a full length novel: The Sorrows of Empire. I haven't read it yet, but my advice is to buy/read that book instead of this one.

"Age of the Empress" (Enterprise), by Mike Sussman with Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore. This begins almost immediately after "In A Mirror, Darkly" (also written by Sussman), so if you haven't watched those episodes recently then you'll probably be a bit lost, since there's not much of a recap. At the same time, I get the impression that the prologue was tacked on after the rest of the story had been written. For instance, when the prologue refers to the Defiant, it says "And what of this vessel's original crew? According to Phlox, they had killed each other in a fit of madness - a century in the future, in an entirely different reality." In chapter 1, it says "It was true that the rebels [...] had aborted their planned attack on Earth, thanks to the timely arrival of the starship from the future and, incredibly enough, a parallel reality." It's not that incredible if you can hold your attention for 20 pages... I suspect that this is an effect of having several writers associated with a short story. Beyond that, the basic storyline is that the mirror-Enterprise crew are fighting each other like cats in a sack; since they're all basically scum, I found this pretty boring, because I didn't care which of them lived or died. It's possible that I'm being hard on this story because I didn't like the TV series much, so I'm not particularly attached to the mainstream universe counterparts, but all in all I'd say that you could skip this story and not miss anything.

"The Sorrows of Empire" (TOS), by David Mack. This is probably the best of the bunch, since it has quite an epic quality to it. It spans a 30 year period, beginning just after the TOS episode that introduced the mirror universe and finishing just after Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (or rather its equivalent), and we see how familiar events played out in a different way. It begins with Spock killing Kirk, and I think that Mack handled this well: he went into enough gory detail to make it clear that this kind of violence is unpleasant, not something to glorify, while still maintaining that it was necessary. Beyond that, this story takes an interesting approach, by deconstructing the deconstruction of the DS9 episodes! It's reasonable to say that changing the Empire would make them vulnerable to their enemies, but it's also reasonable to say that Spock is intelligent, and that he should have been able to anticipate that; according to this story, he did, and he deliberately allowed it to happen as part of a larger plan. (It's implied that this would come to fruition in the "near future" relative to the DS9 episodes, so there's scope for another story that follows through on this.) Mind you, this story didn't refer to the alien probe from Star Trek IV, and I'd be interested to know how the Terran Empire handled that one (assuming that they'd also driven the whales to extinction). So, I strongly recommend reading this story.

"The Worst of Both Worlds" (TNG), by Greg Cox. This is a bit different to the other stories, since it focusses almost entirely on Picard; that's fair enough, since arguably it's a bit of a stretch to have the same group of people meeting up when history has diverged so much, and Dark Mirror included most of the crew. Like the TOS story, this has alternate versions of some familiar events (from TNG episodes), and it involves a conflict with the Borg, but ultimately it all seems inconsequential. If you have the book, you may as well read this story too, but I wouldn't go out of your way for it.

[Nicolas Quattromani · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Age of the Empress" is quite good. This novella about Empress Sato's rise to power reads like a continuation of "In a Mirror, Darkly," which was to be expected since Mike Sussman wrote the stories for both. I love the backstabbing, shifting loyalties, and imperial grandeur, all key parts of the Mirror Universe, and the writing is pretty competent, too.
"The Sorrows of Empire" is the best of the bunch. It is a thoughtful and ambitious story that weaves in aspects of the prime universe (the Genesis device, Khitomer) in creative ways. It also presents Spock as a downright magnificent schemer and manipulator, who paves a road of blood to the top of the imperial hierarchy. Very fun times.
"The Worst of Both Worlds" is also the worst of this book. The writing is amateurish, and while it is interesting to see alternate-universe Borg, the plot drags on despite its short length. In any case I never really liked what DS9 did with the Mirror Universe, destroying the Terran Empire and replacing it with a bland Klingon-Cardassian Alliance. Half the fun of the setting was seeing familiar actors play galactic conquerors. Here Picard is just a washed-up archaeologist, when I wanted to see him as the diabolical captain of the ISS Enterprise-D (like in "Dark Mirror").

Verdict: The first two entries make this anthology well worth it, but you can skip the third.

[Tarl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I admit it, I am a fan of the Mirror, Mirror universe of Star Trek. Where one reviewer stated that they found this world to be depressing when compared to the original Star Trek universe, I personally find that it tells more about mankind. The character struggles and interactions are far more interesting and dynamic than the standard Trek universe where everything is provided for the characters.

So when it came to finding all the written material that took place in the alternative reality of Star Trek, I was happy to find this collection.

I don't know if this was normal, or just due to the unusual way the print book was published (or so I have heard anyway), but my epub file from Kobo presented a flawed version of this book, and I ended up reading parts of 'The Sorrows of Empire' before anything else. I found this to be jarring, and also meant that I later ended up skipping swaths of it when I finally reached that novella.

But let's look at the stories in this anthology:

"Age of the Empress"

About how the Empire was formed, and the trials of the young Empire, this story was fairly interesting to read. I will be the first to admit that Hoshi is not my favorite character. In fact, I highly dislike her in the original Enterprise series, and in the Mirror Universe, she isn't much better. However, her counterpart is far more engaging in this story, and the events that occur were interesting to see unfold. There was a good mix of espionage and action to keep this story moving, and overall there wasn't a lot I found objectionable with either the storyline or writing in this tale.

I did however find that having two vulcans with similar names created a lot of issues to differentiate between both characters. I know that this is more of an issue with the series itself rather than the author, but it still caused confusion when reading the story.

"The Sorrows of Empire"

Easily the least interesting story in this collection. The pacing is slow, the story contains a LOT of dialogue, and none of the characters are all that interesting, even Spock. Though it was interesting to see how Spock slowly tore apart the Empire, the story still lacked anything else to entice the reader to continue reading. Spock himself comes across as interesting as any emotionless character would in a novel without something to make him more interesting. This creates for a very dry story and a main character that, despite who it was, I didn't care about through the entire story.

"The Worst of Both Worlds"

Compared to the previous two stories, this one comes across as completely different, as Picard is not flying a starship, but instead is in an run about. Dealing with his meeting with the Borg, and the moral/mental conflicts he comes across in dealing with them and the Alliance was really interesting to read. There was a nice mix of action in this story as the plot advanced, and the host of main characters were all dynamic and enjoyable to read. Out of all the stories in this collection, I found this story to be the most memorable and overall a really fun read. (and I am not a huge fan of TNG either)

In the end, this was a nice collection of Mirror Universe stories and anyone who is interested in the series will enjoy this book. The references to things from the original universe were really well done, and the tips of the hat to them made me smile. So there you go, if you want to read something that is perhaps darker than your usual Trek, this is for you.

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of books seems to be built like a collection of short stories, each of them set in a certain era and with the known characters from the Star Trek universe.

The first story of this book, Age of the Empress, picks up where the episode "In a mirror, darkly" ended, with newly self-appointed Empress Sato assuming control and reigning over the Terran Empire.
The story is centered on the struggle of the Empire to crush the resistance movement. Lots of space battles (though I didn't enjoy them a great deal due to the fact their description was extremely poor), lots of plotting, scheming and betraying. Pretty much anything you were not accustomed to while watching Star Trek.
All in all, a rather good first story to kick this mirror universe into gear.

The second story covers the Original Series timeline and it starts in a rather funny way, with Spock attempting to kill James Kirk. With the help of an extremely powerful device, The Tantalus device, he rises to power and forges a plan to change the Terran Empire forever. Once he assumes the title of emperor he kicks his plan into gear. The story itself seemed to me extremely familiar with Asimov's Foundation. Spock bases his changes on the fact that Vulcan scientists have calculated that, given its current path, the Terran Empire can only survive for 215 years and then crumble into chaos, taking the entire local space with it. This seemed extremely similar with psychohistory. The way he chose to do it was to accelerate the collapse, while constructing multiple secret repositories all over the local space that were to act as the foundation of the future Terran Republic.

The third story takes us in the late 24th century and has Jean-Luc Picard as the main character. The very interesting twist is that he captains the "starship" Stargazer, which is in reality just a runabout with a crew of one, and his main activity is that of recovering long-forgotten artifacts for his master, Gul Madred - basically he's a tomb raider. Through an ex-lover of his he gets introduced to a genius scientist working for the resistance, Noonien Soong who convinces Picard to help him find the Borg. That's right! They go on a journey to find the Borg and attempt to enlist their help against the Alliance. Finding the Borg does not end well, as expected, and Picard barely manages to escape their ship. What follows are the mirrored events of the battle from Wolf 359 from Star Trek TNG, this time around the main protagonists, the Klingons, Cardassians, Ferengi and Bajorans meeting the Borg in combat near the icy prison of Rura Penthe. Picard manages to acquire a piece of extremely advanced alien technology that provokes the Collective into destroying their own ship. What this seems to do is spark curiosity in the Collective and preparations for a full scale invasion begin immediately.

On the one hand I enjoyed these tales of a different universe, in all their brutality and treachery, but I couldn't help but notice that these stories have no relation with the Star Trek universe that I enjoyed, other than some characters. The extreme and mostly needless violence portrayed in these stories would certainly shock Gene Roddenberry, if he were alive today.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and I'm looking forward to reading the others in the series.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The original series episode "Mirror, Mirror" visited an alternate universe where familiar characters and institutions existed, but as vulgar perversions of themselves: the Federation was a cruel empire that bullied smaller powers into subordination, its members preyed on one another for promotion-by-assassination, and man's animal passions rather than the better angels of his nature ruled the day. Deep Space Nine revisited this universe, revealing that the Empire had collapsed and that humans were now slaves to a Klingon-Cardassian alliance, and leaders of a new resistance. Glass Empires is a trilogy set throughout the rise, fall, and aftermath of the Terran Empire -- opening with the reign of Empress Hoshi Sato, who leads the Empire's expansion, continuing with the tale of how Emperor Spock single-handedly destroyed the Empire in an attempt to reform it, and ending with Jean Luc Picard and Vash's tale of resistance as they are forced to choose between the appearance of cybernetic creatures called the Borg, and the hated Alliance.

Action-wise, I enjoyed all three novels thoroughly. I was more interested in the characterization than the plots, since the conclusion of the first story was a given and I'd already read the full novel-sized version of the second story. The third was the only major unknown for me. A few of Trek's more interesting characters are here (Shran, the Soong family), and it's amusing to see once-familiar characters behaving somewhat badly.The Enterprise characters become more interesting in general when they're evil, unlike the DS9 characters who were just silly. (At least, in the show: the Niners are noshows here.) The collection has some continuity bugs, though, not surprising given how many authors contributed. One story alludes to the family of Khaan Noonien Singh as the original imperial family, but another story mentions that genetic engineering was forbidden, almost as if the writers forgot this was the mirror universe. Maybe Khan and his family forbad genetic engineering to make sure they had no rivals, but if so that should have been mentioned. Secondly, as much as I liked the idea of an alternate Wolf 359 where a Klingon-Cardassian fleet is trashed, why were the Borg there? In the original TNG run, Picard was introduced to the Borg by Q, who wanted to punish him for his arrogance; the Borg then became interested in the Alpha Quadrant after reading the Enterprise's databanks and began sniffing around. Here they just show up and start assimilating, as if it were preordained. The problem with the mirror universe of DS9 and much of these stories is that it's just not different enough: the only distinction is that humans created an empire instead of peaceful federation, and interstellar affairs have developed differently as a result.

[Lorraine · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Finished Age of the Empress, 1st book in this 3 book anthology. I'm sure I'm missing some of the character nuance not having watched much of Enterprise, but I still enjoyed this MU romp. It's a very believable and enjoyable story of what happened to the Defiance after she winked out of existence in the TOS ep The Tholian Web. Reads like an ep of ST and has prompted me to watch Enterprise."

"Finished reading The Sorrows of Empire. Book 2 of this anthology starts a few days after our Kirk puts a bug in MU Spock's ear regarding the( il )logic of the Empire and ends decades after with the inevitable. Reads like a ST ep and the character's voices ring true. A very satisfying filling in of a story hinted at in TOS and DS9. What a wonderful mini series this would have made!"

I really loved the first two stories. The third story, "Fo Tsrow Eht Sdlrow Htob" or The Worst of Both Worlds, not so much. The author tried really hard. I always heard Vash's voice but not Picard's or Soong's. The story itself was very believable minus Picard's headlong flight down a 200 metre shaft and undamaged landing in four feet of black muck.
There's also a glaring error when Picard's disruptor morphs into a phaser and back into a disruptor all in the span of three pages.

A fun fact that I discovered while reading the "about the authors" section is that David Mack is a huge Rush fan - Canadian Progressive Rock band. That's my kind of guy - loves Star Trek and Rush!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good anthology book. All the short stories link up to form a mostly cohesive arc. Well worth a read if you enjoy the mirror universe episodes of Star Trek. Especially considering that TNG never had a mirror universe episode, it felt pretty cool to see the TNG crew’s doppelgängers