Day of the Vipers

Star Trek: Terok Nor #1

by James Swallow

Before the Dominion War and the decimation of Cardassia...before the coming of the Emissary and the discovery of the wormhole...before space station Terok Nor became Deep Space 9™...there was the Occupation: the military takeover of an alien planet and the violent insurgency that fought against it. Now that fifty-year tale of warring ideologies, terrorism, greed, secret intelligence, moral compromises, and embattled faiths is at last given its due in the three-book saga of Star Trek's Lost Era...

A seemingly benign visitation to the bountiful world of Bajor from the resource-poor Cardassian Union is viewed with cautious optimism by some, trepidation by others, and a calculating gleam by unscrupulous opportunists. What begins as a gesture of compassion soon becomes something very different. Seen through the eyes of participants on both sides -- including those of a young officer named Skrain Dukat -- the personal, political, and religious tensions between the Bajorans and the Cardassians quickly spiral out of control, irrevocably shaping the futures of both worlds in an emotionally charged and unforgettable tale of treachery, tragedy, and hope.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Adventure, Ebooks, Fantasy

510 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 2008

About the author

James Swallow is a New York Times, Sunday Times and Amazon #1 bestselling author and scriptwriter, a BAFTA nominee, a former journalist and the award-winning writer of over sixty-five books, along with scripts for video games, comics, radio and television.

DARK HORIZON, his latest stand-alone thriller, is out now from Mountain Leopard Press, and OUTLAW, the 6th action-packed Marc Dane novel, is published by Bonnier.

Along with the Marc Dane thrillers, his writing includes, the Sundowners steampunk Westerns and fiction from the worlds of Star Trek, Tom Clancy, 24, Warhammer 40000, Doctor Who, Deus Ex, Stargate, 2000AD and many more.

For information on new releases & more, sign up to the Readers’ Club here: www.bit.ly/JamesSwallow

Visit James's website at http://www.jswallow.com/ for more, including ROUGH AIR, a free eBook novella in the Marc Dane series.

You can also follow James on Bluesky at @jmswallow.bsky.social, Twitter at @jmswallow, Mastodon at @jmswallow@mstdn.social and jmswallow.tumblr.com at Tumblr.

Reviews

[Sud666 · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Day of the Vipers" was an excellent Star Trek story. In fact, it is one of the best I've read in a long time. It is a dark and gritty story with the backdrop being the slow-motion fall of Bajor.

Taking place decades before the events of Deep Space Nine, Bajor is a relatively isolationist planet minding its own business. Unfortunately, Bajor has come under the gaze of the Cardassian Union which needs resources for its native population. Seen through the eyes of several key players from a Bajoran police officer to leaders of the major faiths.

The events take place over the space of a decade as you see the Cardassians slowly increase their influence and their presence on Bajor. We have self-interested politicians, rebel fighters, religious conflicts and the awesome Obsidian Order (Cardassian Intelligence) all working to turn Bajor into "Terek Nor", their name for Bajor.

The characters of Rhan Ico, a xenologist who is actually an Agent of the Obsidian Order, and Gul Dukat are great to read. Even the covert operation by Starfleet Intelligence ends up showing the dark nature of the tale. I shall not give any more spoilers. If you want to know the events that caused Bajor to fall to the Cardassians then you will absolutely love this series. I am looking forwards to getting book two.

[Nicky2910 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: Terok Nor: Day of the Vipers by James Swallow This book covers the years 2318 to 2328 - or rather, the day of official first contact between peace loving, religious Bajor and expansionist, war-torn Cardassia, up till the official start of the occupation.
 
It all starts when a Cardassian ship returns a lost Bajoran trading ship to Bajor. What is first seen as a friendly gesture by a race that some district ministers have contact with, leads to settlements of a persecuted religious minority (which bears similarities to Bajoran faith) and the presence of Cardassian military forces in Bajoran space. But Dukat and the Obsidian Order won't rest until Bajor is firmly under Cardassian jurisdiction.
 
This is a gripping account of the beginnings of Bajor's occupation, of how Cardassia slowly gains influence using puppets, sycophants, infiltrators and agitors and the actual occupation is practically a fait accompli even years before. It's a fascinating tapestry Swallow weaves about a forbidden religious minority that finds sanctuary on Bajor (but is used as a stepping stone in every way imaginable), about Dukat who abhors Bajor's richness in food (especially considering that his family is practically starving and immersed in civil unrest), its complacency, its strong religious foundation, about a kai who was shown in a vision an emissary would come, about the Obsidian Order's modus operandi and about the friendship of 3 Bajorans who are directly and indirectly affected by Cardassian presence on Bajor.
 
There are a few questions that remain, such as why Cardassia doesn't just invade, because Bajor has practically no defense ressources and invasion (or turning Bajor into part of their Union) was the goal from the start. At first Cardassia's still tied up with other military operations, so I'll grant them the first 5 years. But then? Perhaps it's the fact that although Bajor's in fact a conquered territory, that the Order managed to use their assets in a way that in the end it looked like the Bajoran government sanctioned, even asked for Cardassian troops to keep the peace. At least that's the reason (among others) why the Federation doesn't interfere. Bajor, after all, is an independent planet who decides its own fate - only that it doesn't really here.
 
But it's an intriguing tale about what it takes to make overt military action practically unnecessary, to destabilize a planet's government so that it practically asks for invasion. Compelling, and a bit frightening (especially given the recent talk about outside influence on elections) to think that one only has to manipulate a few spokes in order to get the whole wagon to tumble down. Definitely recommended - even if there are few better known characters in it, such as Dukat or Kotan Pa'Dar whose enmity with Dukat is explored a bit here. It just takes a while to really get going, but once it does it's difficult to put this book down.

[Mayaj · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been thinking of this as the Make Bajor Great Again book.

Like, I don't even know where to begin. No, I do know where to begin: the conflation of invasion and immigration. Wtf. This book is set before the start of the occupation and tells the story of how Cardassians slowly began infiltrating Bajoran society as (sneaky dirty) refugees fleeing religious persecution. Really.

There are a few sole sane Bajoran nationalists (yes that is what they are called in book) who are macho and smart and try to sound the alarm about the changes in Bajoran culture (and ohmygod Cardassians look weird and their food smells bad), but the special interest politicians shout them down and doom the planet! The spoonheads beam down weapons in boxes marked "baby milk" (yes, this actually happens), and not only tempt away Bajoran weemens (with their fancy lizarddick? idk), but undermine the political system by calling for religious tolerance and faking a foreign attack. Yup.

At the same time, Dukat is apparently from an underprivileged background? Like, he remembers hunger. Even though he's from a fancy family? But sure, Dukat gets excited about soup. And then his son dies, and everything he does on Bajor is in vengeance. Of his son? Who... died on Cardassia? But like, "never again", thinks Dukat, blowing up Bajorans willy fucking nilly.

Oh, and Cardassians were super religious. Because that makes sense.

I'm on the second book of this series which, even in the first 20 pages is already insanely better than this... piece of artwork... was, so there's that at least. Like, don't get me wrong, I love some nuance in my Star Trek, but this just felt like someone writing about colonialism from the wrong side of the room if you know what I mean.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first of three sequential novels, by different authors, that tell the back-story of Star Trek:Deep Space Nine. This one fills in ten years of time between the first arrival of representatives of the Cardassian Union on Bajor, up to the first days of the Cardassian occupation. The follow-up novels are Night of the Wolves, and Dawn of the Eagles.

The author has taken a great deal of care to incorporate minor characters and events related by various DS9 episodes and prior novels, as detailed in the ending footnotes. Those who are more obsessed than me will have to let us know how true to canon this all is. The only major character I recognized from the Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation television series was Gul Dukat – the former Cardassian overseer of the Federation’s DS9 space station. It is a younger Dukat, a military officer of impoverished background serving under the Cardassian Union Central Command’s privileged and complacent Danig Kell.

The plot is highly constrained by the need to appropriately take Bajor towards the ultimate situation of the television series. The fates of individual characters and situations, which were not introduced into the television series consistently, can be difficult to keep track of with so many similar sounding names. Still the novel is reasonably coherent. My largest disappointment is that both the Cardassians and the Bajorans are incredibly human, and similar to each other. It is as if they are just different governments of the same species. The traditional religions of both are explored extensively, but seem quite similar to each other and not creatively different from Judeo-Christian religion. On the other hand, one highlight is the devious guile of the Cardassians in their scheming of false flag events and ruthless misinformation.

Overall, I found the novel entertaining, but not outstanding, and of interest only to DS9 fans.

[Chris Blocker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review from The Literary Snob

First off, the fact that I even picked this book up is a credit to the author or the marketing team or someone.

I admit, I am a "Trekker." In middle school, I read twenty or more Star Trek novels; I haven't picked up one since. They were enjoyable, but they were little more than your average action/sci-fi thrills and I needed something meatier as began to fulfill my role as a literary snob.

Aside from my hope for a Trek novel with more literary merit, what attracted me to Day of the Vipers was its subject matter: the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. It’s a part of Trek history that viewers never saw; rather, we were given glimpses of its repercussions in the series Deep Space Nine. I'll spare you the details (if you're curious, read this article), but the fifty-year occupation of Bajor rolls many of humanities darkest moments into one, i.e. colonization, genocide, and slavery.

This book, the first in a series of three, covers the first ten years of Cardassian intervention. Focusing largely on the conspirators and the manipulation of the common man, it moves slower than one might expect. At first this pace bothered me, but I realized that this is how monumentous events happen—it takes many moves on a chess board, many of which involve pawns, before a game builds into something notable. Swallow does an excellent job of making each "chess move" relevant to the story regardless of how tedious some may seem.

I also like that Swallow does not cast the Federation (the mostly human republic and basis for all Star Trek series) as the perfect society as is too often done. Deep Space Nine was brave enough to venture into some of the corruptness of humanity's future and I was glad to see the author here did the same. Making only a few scattered appearances, the Federation prevents intervention in the brewing conflict due to the same bureaucracy we see in today's society.

The most difficult part with Day of the Vipers is the characters themselves. I found many of them to be unrealistic and flat. One of the primary characters, the chief security officer of the Bajoran city focused on, often played the cowboy and felt a bit too cliché. Gul Dukat, who made many appearances in the DS9 series, seemed too dark and not as dimensional as he is in the series. These character discrepancies were not glaring, but they were distracting from time to time.

Overall, I felt Day of the Vipers captured a part of (future) history that needs to be told. It was done well enough that I'll probably read the next book in the series, Night of the Wolves.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend this book to the non-Trekker, but I do think anyone could follow the simple storyline. The story of such heinous acts is, unfortunately, a story we know all too well.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somewhere between 4-5 stars. A lot of interesting Bajoran and Cardassian world building. In today's political climate, it felt a bit weird seeing the politicians we were meant to be rooting for be on the side of isolationism, but I mean... we know how the Occupation turned out. Seeing how awful the Bajoran leaders were, they made it pretty easy for the Cardassians to take over. I also respect that the authors of the DS9 books have gone all in on the "Dukat is definitely a bad guy" characterisation.

I enjoyed all the cameos but the choices were interesting- most of them show show up in the books as adults 50 years before they appear in the shows looking only middle aged. I can accept that the aliens just age slower but I don't buy it with Nechayev. This is just a nitpick though, I enjoyed her story.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

None of our beloved characters...and booooring, boring.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aimed at only a small subset of certain Star Trek fans, this book managed to entrance me. Set around 50 years before the beginning of Deep Space Nine, Day of the Vipers is the first book in a trilogy telling the story of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor (something which becomes a major plot point of the TV show).

This book specifically shows events that lead up to the occupation beginning. It's a character-focused story which contains very few recognisable people from the TV show outside of Dukat. A large number of the characters are established as background players in various episodes from as early as The Next Generation, but they aren't people we know well at all. That's one of the book's strengths, because the fact that this is a prequel means we know how it's all going to end; by using new faces it allows for much more freedom and surprises.

The book is actually quite slow, building at a measured pace and most of the scenes being political in nature. People talk a lot and not a huge amount happens, and yet I got extremely wrapped up in it all. We get told the tale from the viewpoints of both the Bajorans and Cardassians, and within that we get to see from the religious, political and military factions.

And that's what I meant early by the book appealing to only a certain subset of fans. I absolutely love the Bajorans and Cardassians, they were fleshed out on the TV show to an enormous degree and the conflict between them remains one of my favourite parts of the Trek franchise, so I lapped this up. The book takes an enormous amount of tiny facts and information from the various episodes and weaves them in here beautifully.

The only reason I didn't completely love it is because of it's fairly languid pace, and it also feels like there are a lot of characters to follow (the cast list included was referred to often). One particular revelation at the end managed to completely catch me out, it was done well. Among the best Star Trek books I've read, and while none of them are canon I appreciate the efforts that goes into making all current novels sync up together.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a pretty interesting book.

However, if things happened according to the timeline used here, it would make certain characters considerably older than they seem in the series. I guess that could be chalked up to alien biology, but in the case a of one human character, I don't see how that would work out. Overall, I found that rather distracting.

As for the plot, I thought it did a really good job of showing just how insidious the Cardassians could be, how adept the Obsidian Order is at setting up facade after facade to keep their true actions and goals hidden. It gave a believable explanation as to how the Cardassians got a foothold on Bajor, and eventually used it to take over, without either the people revolting en masse or other powers (such as the Federation) stepping in to help.

One thing I didn't like was that the characters themselves seemed a little straight-forward. There wasn't as much of the moral ambiguity, the slow decent into wrong-doing that DS9 was famous for. Part of this could be the number of original characters; I always find it harder to connect with characters I'm unfamiliar with. Even so, it was pretty clear to me in the beginning of the book who the "good guys" and "bad guys" we going to be (on either side). We get a little insight into what motivated some characters, but others seem more two dimensional.

Overall though, the book did a good job of writing believable people and events, and in presenting their actions over a long period of time. The slow train wreck of a political situation presented here was especially well planned out and presented. It was also very obviously well-researched, with many references (some extremely subtle) to people or events mentioned in various Star Trek series and novels.

I'll definitely be reading the next book.

[Cal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well it was okay but kind of mediocre. The plot is strong but characterization and writing style is bland. I can't pick out many traits unique to the characters so it was hard to remember who everyone was and what had happened to who. The pace of the narrative dragged and conversations were interspersed with far too much narration. There was too much bland reflection and so the story did not feel exciting very often.

Dukat's role felt forced and like the writer didn't want to make up their own character for the villain role. But the character simply didn't feel like Dukat. First, I doubt he was a part of the taking of Bajor. The occupation lasted 50 years and he is already a father here. I know we don't know cardassian lifespans but this would make him at least over 70 years old in the show which I highly doubt just based on the sense of time one gets from the show and his placement on Terok nor and his family's runin with Garak's life. Second, his character was simply too flat to be Dukat. Dukat has a lot of charisma and plays with people and shows a smiling or interrogative face when interacting with people. He was much too serious and typically villainous and pissed off all the time for me to really feel like this was Dukat.

Back to the narrative, the action scenes were written well but there were too few.. The author changes scenes right before the "good part" all the time which is kind of frustrating.

The Cardassians seemed also too one dimensional as a race. The show has shown ample cases of them being rather varied in their motives and morality, and I would have liked to have seen that more. Instead we just get the good oralians and the evil other Cardassians. Kinda boring and typical.

All in all, okay, but unmemorable and I wouldn't read it again.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Day of the Vipers, part one of a trilogy, is a prequel to the opening of my favorite Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine. This book addresses the question of how Bajor came to be occupied by the Cardassians, with the main characters being the infamous Skrain Dukat and Darrah Mace, a Bajoran law enforcement officer. The similarities between the two cultures is not nearly as poignant as knowing the holocausts with which the TV show begin and end; reading this book, we know the consequences of the main characters' decisions but are helpless but to watch the inevitable occur.

The epilogue includes an index of the book's people and places and where in Star Trek lore they may have previously appeared. The author deftly weaves in characters that had only cameos or passing references in televised episodes, making me want to watch them again with the new depth Day of the Vipers gives them.

An excellent yet melancholy tale fitting of the DS9 mythos.

[Rebekah Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Although Deep Space Nine was not my favorite Star Trek I thought I'd try it. It was very good. Very deep intricate story. Caught me off guard. Not a lot space battles but more a political drama. I liked it though.

[Abigail K. · Rating 3 out of 5]

A competent political drama almost overshadowed by its mediocre writing and heavy-handed misogyny.

To begin with the good: Sparrow gives us a play-by-play description of how political corruption on both the Bajoran and Cardassian end led to Bajor's occupation. We expect the Cardassian military and Obsidian Order to be insidious, but there are also opportunists on Bajor who wish to get rich off Cardassian exports, Bajoran isolationists who fuel xenophobic rhetoric, and well-meaning people of both species who genuinely want to learn from one another. The Oralians, Cardassians who hold similar religious beliefs to the Bajorans (see DS9:Explorers for why), seek religious persecution from their own people on Bajor, while also being used as a means for Cardassia to get a foothold on Bajor. I found the discussions of the balance between nationalism and nativity to be incredibly engaging, especially with regards to Bennek, the Cardassian priest who actually didn't have any ulterior motives.

I don't expect great writing from what is essentially fanfiction. Nevertheless, the book was published; I would be remiss not to note the elementary writing style. Some words were repeated too often, some sentences misplaced or miswritten, but in my opinion the aspect of the writing that most brought this book down was its multiple perspective approach. There are precious few writers who can successfully tell a story through multiple unique narrators; Sparrow is not one of them. While reading about the fall of Bajor to the Cardassians through varied perspectives was interesting and necessary, the sheer quantity of characters the author narrated through had the consequence of making no character particularly beloved by the reader, no death utterly devastating, and no plot twist delightfully unexpected.

What really gave me the ick were the (more than a few) times Sparrow wrote his men talking derogatory toward women in their lives, whether it be their wife or their superior officer. More than one character referred to another as "woman" or "female" in a way that always felt uncharacteristic and unnecessary. Worst was the police's character, Darrah Mace, whose wife was a caricature of a woman with no job of her own besides dutifully raising their 2 children (one boy and one girl, no less), and who had no personality beyond whining that he was working too much. One scene in particular features Mace returning home after a long day's work, the children in bed, the wife mad because he's late... and when the food isn't ready he tells her "I pay for the house. the least you can do is have something I can eat in the place when I come home!" (pg. 205) We've all seen this trope before. News flash, buddy: she has a job too, and it's called raising your kids! Free childcare, cleaning service, and cook! (ok, feminist rant over).... There was no reason for a scene straight out of a 50s sit-com to be brought to life in the home of a 24th-century Bajoran man. The Bajorans may have had a caste system but I never got the impression that they had the same sex-based discrimination as 20th century America, and it's pretty sad that the author couldn't make his "main" character more interesting... but I digress.

For the political intrigue, for the religious commentary, and for its merit as a prequel, the book is certainly worth reading. It is just solidly a 3 star read, with clear stylistic and thematic faults.

[Graff Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Star Trek: The Lost Years: Terok Nor 01 Day of the Vipers by James Swallow

challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense

Slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters are a main focus? Yes

4.25 Stars

Throughout this story, I know (in basic strokes) what happens to the Bajoran people/planet. The Occupation is long and arduous.

I've never liked the Cardassians, and in some ways, I thought that they'd (author) try to "soft shoe" the Cardassians, but no...he was brutally honest on their desires...and how they played it out.

At first, I also thought that they were going to try and make Skrain G. Dukat a sympathetic character, but NO...they showed his true colours.

The main character of the novel, was a Bajoran Constable Darrah Mace. I really liked him, but the author put him in SO many sticky positions. He always seemed to do the right thing, but not the easy thing.

Also, knowing what happens to Bajor...was always looming overhead. Ugh. Tough to read about. Seeing the good people of Bajor, being manipulated by a race fo people that are ONLY out for their own gratification, and NOT the self-sacrificing people they want you to believe, BEFORE they pull the rug out from underneath you.

Next up, The Lost Era: Terok Nor: Night of the Wolves by S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison.

[E.M. Jeanmougin]

I read a lot of books at once, meaning I finish some in one or two days at most, while others take eons.

I started this one so long ago that when I found it and started reading again, I discovered it still had a piece of a Marlboro NXT wrapper as a bookmark. I haven't smoked for almost three years. The bookstore where I bought this copy has been out of business since COVID. The bookmark was over 100 pages in. I picked up there. So, I will admit, my memories of the beginning are a bit sketchy.

This book is slow and deliberate, and takes place in the months leading up to the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. It uses the world established in the DS9 series very well, but your milage may vary based on your familiarity with the Star Trek Universe.

It was an interesting choice to have the canon character featured be Dukat. Most of the other characters are originals, including the main character, a Bajorean detective named Darrah Mace. If you are looking for a book featuring a lot of characters from the series, this is not it. However, there are A LOT of original characters and several of them have their own plot threads.

This book is okay for the start of a trilogy and beautifully researched with much care to detail, but I hope the others are little faster paced. I'm very excited for Kira.

[phoenix_singing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cardassians must age very gracefully indeed, because Dukat would’ve had to be in his 70s on DS9 and he definitely didn’t look that age. Share those anti-aging secrets, my dude!

Anyway, the review.

This is not a fast-moving plot. Like, at all. There are a lot of people and they talk *a lot.* It’s sometimes frustrating, I think in part because I’ve watched DS9 and I know how this particular story ends (hint: it’s the Occupation. It ends with the Occupation). But when the plot does move, it’s really good. By the last quarter of the book I’d experienced several moments where I had to stop reading and take a few moments to just sit back and appreciate how impressively dastardly the Cardassians actually were - again, them quietly doing very horrible things is not entirely surprising to anyone who’s familiar with the race via DS9 or TNG, but *damn.*

And, yes, I got attached to Darrah Mace. Reading the last 10% or so of the book and rooting for him while also knowing my Trek history was pretty rough. Give the man all the hugs.

Long story short, I couldn’t decide whether this was going to be 3 stars or 4, but the “whoa, dang” moments tipped it to 4. As far as tie-ins go, this is a good one.

On to book 2!

[SamB · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a long book, but it earns every page. It chronicles the slow Cardassian takeover of Bajor from the perspective of numerous characters on both sides, delving deep into their changing motivations in a way that was engaging, totally believeable, and at times utterly horrifying. It's quite a challenge to write a book where the audience knows the ending (spoiler: the Cardassians win and occupy Bajor for over forty years), but that knowledge just adds to the sense of insiduous creeping and dread, and allows for a focus on how, who and why, rather than just what.

The Cardassians and Bajorans are two of my favourite races in the Star Trek franchise, and I've fully enjoyed the novels that have fleshed out their societies (The Never Ending Sacrifice is a big favourite) - add this one to the pile.

[Peter Rydén · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jag är nu halvvägs in i den andra boken i trilogin och en tydlig skillnad kan jag se mellan dem. När man läste den första boken kände man verkligen att man befann sig mitt i de stora händelserna hela tiden. Det var de stora beskrivningarnas bok och även om man fick veta detaljer i enskilda personers liv, tappade jag aldrig kontakten med de stora mer övergripande händelserna.

Ibland görs i båda böckerna korta nedslag i situationer som till ytan ser ut att vara petitessartade, men som när man studerar det närmare inser har att göra med framtida händelser i TNG och främst DS9. Oerhört bra start på trilogin.

För den som vill veta mer om oralierna: Läs boken A Stitch in Time, skriven av ingen annan än skådespelaren baom Elim Garak!

[Burns Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning tale of global deception
In my last review, I praised One Constant Star for its return to the classic Star Trek formula. Day of the Vipers does the exact opposite, and I absolutely loved it. This novel is fairly similar to the Rise and Fall of Khan books, spanning multiple years and telling a grand story. This book differs a bit in that there is far less combat. Day of the Vipers is a beautiful, character driven story. Only a handful of these characters appeared onscreen, but every character has so much depth. The characterization of the Bajorans and Cardassians is excellent. Also, I think Darrah Mace is one of my favorite character archetypes. He’s just a detective trying to balance work and family.
Day of the Vipers is a must read for Deep Space Nine fans, but I also think this book could be enjoyed if you didn’t know any of the previous characters. I cannot praise this novel enough; it just has that endearing quality of being a long book that you never get tired of.

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

The premise of this book is really intriguing -- the insidious politics of how Cardassia wormed its way into occupying a prosperous, stable Bajor -- and it did deliver on that adequately. I also appreciate how it made both societies/planets feel like real places, with vast richness of histories and cultures. Unfortunately, most of it had a distinct lack of narrative momentum (this was supposed to be my "easy fun" read when I started it back in early December!), and I also couldn't remember relevant information about any characters that were in a given scene except for Darrah (who was a boring trope of a guy) and Dukat (who, while interesting to read, was a shallow, imo inaccurate interpretation of his characterization in DS9 show). That said, I did get what I wanted from the book overall, and it did make me excited to eventually continue along with the trilogy (plus the next two are written by an author that does well with characters).

[Sanity Assasin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A horrible read, but well written, book. To be honest the story could happen anywhere anytime & that's why it works. Despite the depths some of the characters go to the Bajor situation is something us, as readers, could come to relate to in reality in any country if we don't keep an eye on our elites (no outside enemy required.. but corruption & lies are everywhere). The book touches a nerve. The helplessness in which some of the characters suffer is an old fear appealing to our basic nature. What would you, or could you, do?

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Swallow tells of a pivotal event in Deep Space 9 lore, drawing parallels to the German annexation of Czechoslovakia. It is a bit weighed down by all of the aliens and their names, and I had a somewhat difficult time distinguishing the Bajorans from the Cardassians. The novel strains a bit in juggling so many characters and aiming for a complex characterization of them, but I appreciated its ambition. I definitely prefer these more political novels than "episode in the travels of starship NCC-1701-X".

[Richard Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Considering it has almost no characters we've seen before and it's a prequel story so we know what happens, I found this to be a really good novel. Great characters and excellent pacing. Only negative was that I couldn't remember who all the characters were and navigating back to the dramatis personae section is trickier on an e-reader. I have the next book in the series in paperback so looking forward to starting that one

[Oz Trekkie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished Day of the Vipers.

Wasn’t sure I would like this one as you already know what the outcome will be.

The book gives an interesting insight into how Dukat became the man we saw in DS9.

There was some classic Star Wars lines used in the novel which gave me a chuckle.

All in all a great read which gave good insight to the Cardassisn occupation of Bajor.

********Spoiler********

I was really glad that Darrah Mace survived the novel and was reunited with his family at the end.

[Penguinnrockets · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one! It felt like a puzzle that slowly came together at the end since there were multiple character POVs and the story didn't feel linear and cut and dry.

plus seeing Dukat pre-ds9 was also interesting.

[David Mcgrady · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the book but I found it very hard to get into

[Gary McCluskey · Rating 1 out of 5]

Terrible story. Not worth it.

There is little in this storyline that is of interest. It doesn't tell you enough of the cardassians or Bajorans.

[Autodefa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic ! It was exactly what I was looking for as a DS9 prequel. Two more to go.

[Itty · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this one but this book was hard to read because they characters were so uninteresting. I hope the other ones in the series are better.

[Lanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dukat is my favorite villain of all time. I enjoyed this for his backstory.