The Big Game (Mass Market Paperback)

Taking into consideration that this is one of the earliest DS9 novels and the limited amount of episodes that the authors had in which to study the characters, I would say that they did a wonderful job of capturing the essence of the characters at this point in the series. Given the fluidic nature of Deep Space Nine, it was a very trying time for authors to actually write and then publish stories for the series since things were changing so quickly on the series.

With "The Big Game" being the first novel written by these two fantastic authors; I found their writing style to be fairly fluidic and the pacing of the novel went quite well with the story being told.

The cover art for this early DS9 title is pretty much standard for the time in which this novel was produced.

The premise:

Quark, being the outstanding "scoundrel" and entertainer that he is decides to hold a high stakes poker tournament on the station. Present for the tournament is several representatives from the many races of the Alpha quadrant. Suddenly, one of the players is murdered and the stakes rise even higher for those playing. At the same time, the station is rocked by a series of subspaces waves that threaten to destroy the station. Now, Commander Sisko and Odo must find the killer in time to save the players and get the information from them that will save the station.

As a whole, as stated above, this is an excellent early DS9 title in which the authors captured the characters quite well, especially the oft times humorous quibbling between Quark and Odo, without taking it to the extreme. I also rather enjoyed the use of characters seen previously in other series. I highly recommend this early DS9 novel to any and all fans of the genre. {ssintrepid}

But that's the bad news: the story behind the writing just wasn't interesting; it's a bad sign when the poker tournament at Quark's is more interesting than the obligatory station crisis.

This book was actually written as a collaborative effort between Dean Wesley Smith and his wife, Kristine Katheryn Rush. (Sandy Schofield is the pseudonym they chose for the collaboration.) If you are familiar with (and fond of) the individual work of either of these writers, you might want to try this one. But I can't say that I was overly impressed.