Product Description

Cardassian agent Ileana Ghemor, who was once surgically alterered to resemble and replace the Bajoran Kira Nerys, dreams of fulfilling a prophecy that will mark her as the one true emissary of the mirror universe -- a messianic figure who will lead her followers into a war that could open the way to cleansing the multiverse of countless alternate Kiras in countless parallel realities. But the stakes are higher than anyone imagines, for alongside Ghemor, the pull of destiny tugs at other souls who are swept into the vortex of the Prophets, the remote and timeless beings who have set these events in motion. The outcome of this struggle for the fate of one universe will ripple across many others, giving shape to a future that will prove to be the greatest trial yet for the heroes of space station Deep Space 9.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #78440 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 320 pages

About the Author
Olivia Woods lives in New York. This is her first Star Trek novel.

Customer Reviews

For the fans
This novel is the culmination of several plotlines of several earlier Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novels, so if you haven't read them, you'll be lost. But if you have, you'll find it a nice denouement to several of those stories, as well as a springboard to the next. It is also pretty clever how several chapters take place around events described in those novels.

As well as the novels, The Soul Key builds from episodes from the series such as "The Storyteller", "Crossover" and "Second Skin".

Fairly flat ending *warning minor spoliers*
Set during "Season Nine" of Deep Space Nine, this book manages to tie up most of the plotline from DS9 Worlds:Bajor, Warpath and Fearful Symmetry. You need to read those books at the very least to have a clue what is happening.

Taran'Atar, a Jem Hadar sent by Odo to live among the "Solids" on DS9, has been manipulated into betraying his allies and his gods. Now he serves a new master - Illyana Ghemor, former operative of the Cardassian Obsidian Order. Realising that the Bajoran Wormhole has the power to access countless universes, she has become hellbent on destroying Kira Nerys in not just our universe, but all possible and parallel ones. Kira and Commander Vaughn go on a desperate mission to the Mirror Universe to stop her, and to ensure that that universe's equivalent of an Emissary of the Prophets can be found in time.

This whole story has been a bit flat. When they revealed the potential power in the wormhole in DS9 Worlds, I was rather intrigued, but the follow up was poor. Illiana is just a nutcase who has fixated on Kira (a weak parallel to Dukat's obsession with Sisko). Why Illiana's crew follow her so obsessively is never really made clear. The weaknesses of the Mirror Universe Saga from the tv show are repeated here - it never really made sense that the Terran rebels could stand up to the Alliance, and that is made even more obvious. Solving the problem of how to use the wormhole to access that universe is literally Deus Ex machina - but I don't mind too much, it's obvious the Prophets are maneuvering people and events to suit them. At least we finally get a snippet of the Ascendant plotline - perhaps that is the next major arc.


As the other reviewer commented, Season 8 was a very strong series of DS9 novels; Season 9 has fallen a bit flat so far.

I'm disapointed
The latest novel in the continuation series to DS9 follows on immediately from where the previous one left off... which is it's first mistake. It's been two years since the previous novel was released, and this one makes no effort to remind the reader of what had been happening, instead diving straight into a very complicated and confusing plotline.

I must confess that I wasn't holding out much hope for this one as I found the previous novel, Fearful Symmetry, also by Woods, to be below par as well. This one does have its moments - there are a few scenes towards the end that stood out - but there are others (for example space battles which last half a page) which are deeply unsatisfying.

The books is rather arbitrarily split into six parts, but even within those the narrative jumps around between times and places - and when you have three characters who are almost the same person it can get quite confusing. The storyline seems to rely too much on jumping backwards and revealing things which happened earlier that we didn't see at the time - and it feels really forced, as if they are just there to switch the course that the series was set on in the previous novel.

I'm disappointed, because I thought the first few DS9 relaunch books were really good, and now they are just letting the series down. My advice is that if you are a fan then go ahead and read it, but re-read at least Fearful Symmetry (if not more of the previous novels) first to get your head back around the storyline!