The Laertian Gamble (Mass Market Paperback)

I've read novels that the basic plot required several chapters but with this novel it reaches the point of ridiculous quite quickly, 273 pages and 73 chapters, my goodness.

The cover art matches the novel quite perfectly, poorly thought out.

The premise:

A mysterious alien woman from the planet Laertes convinces Dr. Bashir to gamble for her at Quark's bar and he accedes thinking it innocent enough. To everyone's surprise though, the more he wins, the more things go wrong throughout the Federation; in comes the "Complexity Theory."

When Julian attempts to stop, a Laertian fleet appears and forces him to continue. Kira and Dax find that they must go to the planet Laertes themselves to attempt to stop this madness but they soon find that they must battle through chaos and danger in order to save Deep Space Nine and the Federation itself.

The plot behind this one is a bit ridiculous and would've probably worked out a little better if it were written outside of the Star Trek genre. Overall, I would only recommend this as a collectors/completists purchase. {ssintrepid}

But, of course, there is a bizarre Laertian science called the Complexity Theory that is connected to Bashir's gambling. As Bashir tries to stop, the Laertian warfleet appears and literally forces Bashir to continue. If that wasn't enough, Major Kira and Dax are on the planet Laertes and must battle their way through chaos and danger making for an intertesting story. The story is quite simple, but the book is complex in that it is written in a choppy-manor. Some readers will find it difficult to read, but don't lose faith keep reading as the story is wonderful if not more to the fantasy side of TREK than actual TREK.

This is another story where the principles in the story must correct a wrong, keeping the Federation, if not the whole universe from utter destruction. I found rereading the book makes more sense than just your initial scan of the plot and storylines. The Laertian Complexity Theory is simular to or quite like the Theory of Chaos, but Dax and Kira seem to do well with the problems that they face.

I enjoyed the book more the second time I read it... even though the writing style is choppy, the story was good. Remember this is early DS-9 so the characters aren't as fleshed out as they should be. Nor, are their roles and styles of action layed out or defined. All in all, the storyline was well-thoughtout, but the writing could have been written a little better... where was the editor?

A big problem is how choppy the dialogue is. Either the author is trying to write at a 5th grade level or he just doesn't have a clue how to write for Star Trek. None of the characters in the book speak like they should be speaking. The entire thing seems forced.

If your a Trek completist and happen to already have the book, I'd give it another read. Otherwise, there are A LOT better Trek novels to read.