Jake Sisko. Son of the Emissary. Starfleet brat. A young man looking for his place in the universe, trying to step out from some very imposing shadows. And one of the most underutilized characters in Trek. Until now. S. D. Perry gives Jake a chance to shine on his own, and introduces a set of supporting characters that by all rights could carry a story...or series...on their own, in Rising Son. Readers finally discover just what Jake has been up to for the last several months, and they will be far from bored: Following an ancient Bajoran prophecy he hoped would reunite him with his father, Jake's been hurled hundreds of parsecs from the wormhole, nearly frozen to death in a burned out shuttle, rescued by a multi-special crew of fortune hunters on a ship that's far more alien than any of them, and treated to far more adventure than he could have bargained for. And just when he thinks life couldn't get any stranger, he mets a sage named Sulan...and discovers the prophecy that he followed to get here was true...just not in the way he expected it to be. Perry brings Jake out of the shadows and squarely into the light, revealing a all-too-human young man with substance, shading, and character. She plays him off the crew of the Even Odds...and they off him...very well, and gives Jake a surrogate father figure of a sort in Dez, the ship's captain. From the Wadi first officer to the Ferengi brothers who handle the accounts, from the cheerfully thrill-seeking Aarruri to the Cardassian medic with scars on his hands and on his soul, Perry creates a memorable cast of characters who fairly scream for books of their own, and soon. One wants to see these characters again. In short, this is a very solid, very good story in its own right, and will easily whet the reader's appetite for Perry's next book,Unity.
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Title: Rising Son
Author: S.D. Perry
Review by: CL4 Skull Leader
4-25-05
