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Zero Sum Game

by David Mack

Reviewed by Coral


When sensitive information is stolen from a base on Mars, Starfleet suspects the newly formed Typhon Pack. Locked in a cold war with this alliance, Starfleet can’t risk openly accusing them, so Section 31 is tasked with ensuring that the Typhon Pact can’t benefit from what they’ve stolen.

Dr. Julian Bashir finds himself recruited once again. Paired up with his long lost love, Sarina Douglas, they are tasked with infiltrating the secretive Breen world.

I have to admit I bought this book mostly because it promised to be a Bashir centred story. It’s been awhile since I’ve read any of the Star Trek novels or watched anything other than the reboot movie series. I wonder if it’s because it has been so long that I have no memory of Sarina Douglas from the DS9 TV show, or if it was because the episode just wasn’t that memorable. Weird how she has suddenly become Bashir’s “the one that got away”.

Espionage just really isn’t one of the genres I’m interested in, so the book was a bad fit that way.

I did enjoy learning more about the Breen, even if it isn’t officially canon. I did think that the author had a unique approach to the species.

I don’t think that the author knew how to write for Bashir and Sarina. Both of them are supposed to be really smart, with Sarina ahead of Bashir. But in writing Sarina as the “smart one” of the pair, Bashir ended up seeming dumb, overlooking obvious things.

In the end it was a so-so book.

Grade: C