Book Review: ‘Raise the Dawn’ by David R. George III

January 16, 2023 at 8:45 am | Posted in Books, Reviews, Star Trek | Leave a comment
Tags: david r. george iii, typhon pact

Star Trek: Raise the Dawn is the penultimate novel in the Typhon Pact series. It was written by David R. George III and was released in July of 2012. 

While the Typhon Pact series has had everything from fantastic entries to utterly dull ones, this book lands itself somewhere in the middle. There are things that I thought were excellently done in this book, while there were other elements that bored me throughout. 

I’ll begin with what works in the book. When writing a political story, David R. George does a really good job. The Typhon Pact vs. The Federation storyline here was fascinating and I was hooked on every chapter. In some ways, this book paid off several books of development, particularly the last few by David R. George. While I’ve seen many reviewers discuss how this novel is part of a duology with Plagues of Night, I would argue that it’s more of an end to a trilogy, including Rough Beasts of Empire. 

The reason this book works is that George fixes several issues he created in Rough Beasts of Empire. In that novel, he set up a really bad plot line and character arc for Sisko. However, in this book, he not only fixes that plot arc, but he also makes it worthwhile. I don’t know whether this was planned all along or whether George made a change last minute as a result of the backlash to Rough Beasts, but it works nonetheless. 

This book also has some hilarious character interactions, particularly featuring Nog/O’Brien/Ro, as well as Bashir/Douglas/Quark. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. David R. George really gets Quark and I think should continue writing Quark novels for the foreseeable future. I would certainly read them. 

There are some sequences that follow the leadership of the Federation and the leadership of the Typhon Pact that I really enjoyed, and I especially liked when they all converged towards the end.

I thought the fallout from the previous book was entertaining, but should have been a bigger story. The climax of the previous book was so huge that it should have had universe shattering implications. There are certainly repercussions, as evidenced by this book, but George could have spent a lot more time with them. It is also interesting that the action and disaster around DS9 was sidelined for other ships and storylines. The book was entertaining and engaging nonetheless, but it could have been so much better if it had cut out some superfluous elements and added more to the disaster in the beginning. 

Speaking of superfluous elements, this book does have a few, and that’s what keeps it from true greatness. The biggest problems here are the supernatural elements and nonlinear elements. When George writes supernatural elements or nonlinear elements, his stories become endlessly boring. This occurs with a vision sequence that is throughout the book (you’ll understand when you read it) that absolutely doesn’t work. There are also some supernatural elements closer to the end that just weren’t interesting. Those elements lead into his The Fall novel Revelation and Dust, where it wasn’t interesting there either!

 Overall, this is an enjoyable novel. It fixes issues from previous books, delivers on the political storylines, and also provides enjoyable character pairings. However, George has some elements he really needs to step up to keep his books from being bland and run-of-the-mill. Overall, Raise the Dawn gets a 4 out of 5.

Reviewed By: Jonathan Koan for Roqoo Depot

Advertisement