Armin ShimermanRecensioni

I just finished “The 34th Rule” by Armin Shimerman and David R. George III, after spending quite a while working my way through it. Shimerman was the actor who brought the main character, Quark, to life on the TV show, “Star Trek: Deep Space 9”.

Overall, it was ok. Not a great novel but not a terrible one.

Quark, of course, is the main character in “The 34th Rule,” so it mostly follows him. The background is the Ferengi Grand Nagus, Zek, has acquired one of the Bajoran Orbs of the Prophets, rare, mystical items that are a major part of the Bajorans’ religion. Zek wants to sell it to the highest bidder, while the Bajorans feel that it’s rightfully their’s.

When Zek holds round 1 of an auction, the Bajorans’ bid isn’t good enough and he doesn’t allow them to participate in round 2, angering the Bajorans, of course. That sets in motion lots of political maneuvering and leads to a war. Quark and his brother Rom spend much of the novel in prison on Bajor, caught in the middle of it, and it’s up to Captain Sisko to try and repair the whole situation…

Being completely nonreligious, I was mostly unmoved by the Bajoran side of things.

The end of the novel sort of fizzled out…. With the real world Quark being one of the authors, you’d expect him to be more heroic towards the conclusion, but it didn’t turn out that way by the final chapters, which was disappointing. And there’s some hints that one of the other Ferengi who was imprisoned with Quark had deeper involvement, but then that didn’t end up going anywhere, either.

I was entertained on some weekend afternoons by the book, but that’s about it.

Armin Shimerman and David R. George III’s novel, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The 34th Rule takes place during the fourth season of DS9 and puts the Ferengi Alliance at odds with the Bajoran Provisional Government. Following the events of the third season episode “Prophet Motive,” Grand Nagus Zek plans to auction off the Orb of the Prophets he purchased from the Cardiassians, who had looted it when they departed Bajor following the occupation. Bajor places a bid, but does not make it to the final round of the auction. The Provisional Government believes that they have a legal right to the Orb as it was looted from them, so they demand that the Nagus allow them to continue in the auction or they will bar all Ferengi from Bajoran space, including the wormhole. The Nagus refuses, the Bajoran Provisional Government expels the Ferengi, and Quark and his brother Rom find themselves in uncertain waters on Deep Space Nine. The Bajorans arrest them, but put them in an interment camp when the Ferengi blockade the Bajoran system, denying access to food, medicine, and other trade goods. In their plot, Shimerman and George drew inspiration from the U.S. government’s internment of Japanese and Japanese-Americans during World War II. Shimerman further used this novel to deepen the portrayal of the Ferengi, an effort he began in his role as Quark to counter their portrayal in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The Last Outpost.”

Shimerman portrays Captain Benjamin Sisko and others, both in Starfleet and the Bajorian militia, examining their motives. For example, Sisko discusses his reticence to do more to resist the Bajoran edict and questions if he is motivated by conscious or unconscious biases (pg. 113). Jake responds, “It’s only natural to draw inferences from the compilation of your life experiences. It’s only when somebody does that without thinking, or to adversely affect another person, that it’s a bad thing… The fact that you’re now questioning yourself about the Federation’s role – and your own role – in this affair between the Bajorans and the Ferengi is an indication of that” (pg. 114, further examples on pg. 360-361). The Ferengi themselves continue to serve as an example of the perils of capitalism. As Jake says, “As far as the Ferengi are concerned, I think it’s important for you to realize that it’s because you believe so deeply in your own philosophy – including the Federation Constitution, Starfleet regulations, and the Prime Directive – that it’s difficult for you to credit not only a foreign notion of right and wrong, but something that was previously considered wrong in Earth’s past. Capitalism and greed almost destroyed our world” (pg. 115). Shimerman and George’s novel thus gets to the very heart of the humanistic morality that underpins every entry in the Star Trek franchise. A worthy entry in the Deep Space Nine series of novels from one of the people who best knows the characters.

Fans of DS9 are sure to love this audiobook read by Quark himself, Armin Shimerman. It is precisely what you think it is - a DS9 adventure focused on Quark. There is a little Bajoran politics thrown in for good measure.

Good, but certainly not great. Entertaining. The personality of all the characters certainly matched those of the TV characters. Sort of unbelievable from the TV episodes dealing with the Ferengi. I had read somewhere that this is one of the best of all the Star Trek novels. If true, there is not a very high standard for Star Trek novels. On the other hand, the 34th Rule does compare favorably with the other Star Trek novels I have read.

I hated how Kira was portrayed in her interactions with Quark. She was a terrible bigot.

The interaction between Quark and Rom was nice.

Let's get the bad out of the way: the book really needed another pass with the editor, not only to catch typos, but to cut all the unnecessary exposition. Parts of the ending are a letdown: I was particularly disappointed with the villain, an intriguing character who wasn't developed well, and whose ending is right next to "nonevent" in the dictionary. And while the points about racism are well-made--and perfectly in line with DS9, which thrived on deconstructing Roddenberry's "ideal future"--they are rather heavy-handed, especially where Kira is involved.

That said, there's also a lot of good about this book. The plot is fairly well-constructed; there are plenty of twists I didn't see coming, and by the end, most of the pieces have come together nicely. The Ferengi are a difficult race to write for, and here they actually make the convincing opponents they were meant to be in The Next Generation: they may lack brute force, but they make up for it by being cunning and clever, and the wheels within wheels of their plotting keeps the crew on their toes. And then there's Quark--he's perhaps the most difficult character to write for, but here he's spot-on. He's not perfect, but he has his own strengths, and he's capable of using them to accomplish surprising things if he gets a chance. But while Quark and Rom are particularly noteworthy, it's worth noting that the other characters are generally written pretty evenly: it'd be easy to just depict them all as "people who have always been so mean and unfair to the Ferengi just because" and spend the book demonizing them. Instead, they're mostly depicted as well-rounded individuals who have been shaped by all kinds of events, for better and for worse. And despite everything they've been through, they're also capable of reflecting, growing, and working to become better people.

Long story short, it's not a perfect book, but it's one of the better DS9 ones. If you enjoyed the series, this is worth a read.

In terms of "fitting in," The 34th Rule has a big advantage over previous novels I've read for this project-- instead of being written during its broadcast season, it was actually written much later. In this case, the book was released during Season 7, so the Deep Space Nine of this era was very much a known quantity. The 34th Rule fits comfortably between "Bar Association" and "Body Parts"; I didn't notice any real irregularities. Indeed, the book fills a minor gap in the show's continuity, depicting how the Orb of Wisdom got from Zek's possession in "Prophet Motive" to Bajor's in "In the Cards."

This is really a book of two parts. The first is Quark's imprisonment at the hands of the Bajorans. In classic David R. George III (note, however, that he is listed on the title page only as "David George") fashion, this plot line takes a long time to build up, but once it gets going, it's quite brutal, and of course Armin Shimerman and George have a strong grasp on the characters of Quark and Rom. I would have really liked to have seen the characters receive dramatic material this powerful more often on screen-- even the best "Ferengi episodes" like "Bar Association" still have comic turns that this book just does not.

But the real protagonist is, surprisingly, Sisko. Quark is not really changed by the experiences of The 34th Rule. He's been through a rough time to be sure, and he's learned that Zek is even smarter than he can imagine, and he's had some of his assumptions about the fundamental prejudices of hew-mons confirmed, but he's still basically Quark. But the most interesting thing about the novel is Sisko's character arc of learning about his own prejudice, and trying to move past it. The book's highlight scene is definitely the one where Ben and Jake discuss prejudice while watching Jackie Robinson play baseball in the holosuite, and again, it's a scene that would have been really great to have seen on screen.

What also surprised me in this reread is the extent to which some characters are not changed: Kira moves a little, but barely so, and she's pretty awful to Quark before that, so it's hard to see her shift as very big. There's also a very awkward scene where after Quark has been brutally tortured, Bashir is cracking jokes about his appearance. It's intentionally awkward. I can imagine that if it was on screen, it would have been funny-- Quark's injuries are often played for laughs-- but seeing it from Quark's interiority is not funny. It's actually quite a damning indictment of some of our main characters. Both Kira and Bashir come across quite unsympathetically when you're looking at things entirely from Quark's perspective.

Continuity Points:

• Sirsy is introduced as Shakaar's aide; she will reappear in that role in the relaunch novels.
• Similarly, the USS New York is mentioned, and Sisko evidently commands it in some later novels. (I still haven't read beyond... Losing the Peace, I think.)
• On one hand, the book can't have any of the Federation characters change their hearts and stop being jerks to the Ferengi simply because of its chronological placement-- they act the same way to Quark in Seasons 5 through 7 as they did before. But it's not a bug, it's a feature: it would be unrealistic for any of them to experience cathartic, large shifts in behavior. And you can imagine everyone's experiences here informing their behavior in the last scene of "Body Parts."
• When the Prophets Cried is a Bajoran religious text about how the Orbs came to Bajor, much read by Kira (and also read by Sisko). This is probably our most sustained and detailed knowledge of any Bajoran religious text. It's nice to have one that's not just a plot-catalyzing spooky prophecy. The only other ones I think we have are Akorem's poems, but I don't think they're canonical.

Other Notes:

• Has Zek ever been smarter than he is here? This is probably the only time he ever does something in-story that would validate the idea that he controls a vast financial empire.
• No, seriously, the stuff in Gallitep is brutal. Man, I would love to see Max Grodénchik do some of this.
• I find it odd that Nog only comes up tangentially here. As a Ferengi in Starfleet, what does he think of the Federation's actions here? Even just a chapter from his perspective would have been nice. Wouldn't he have called his dad up?

Well I am finally back in Australia and I now have some time to actually comment on this book that I finished on the plane flight from Hong Kong to Australia. For some reason the plane flight to Australia seems to take the most out of me, despite the plane flight from Europe being that main contributor to my jet lag. Then again, I quite like jet lag simply because I means that I have just been to Europe. Also, I can't say that the annoyance of the flight into Australia has anything to do we me coming back home because I like living in Australia and I like living in Melbourne, particularly since, out of all the cities that I have been to, Melbourne has by far and away the best trams.
As for this book, well, I suspect that it is going to be difficult for people to get their hands of this book these days since it is now out of print and can really only be found on Ebay or in a second hand bookshop (and generally getting books from a second hand bookshop can be a very hit or miss affair). Mind you, I found this book in such a shop and the only reason that I bought it was because it was about Ferengi, and even though it started off quite dry, and I winced at the fact that the book was written (or part written) by an actor (Armin Shimmerman, who plays Quark in Deep Space Nine) it did seem to pick up okay towards the end. I can't say it was engrossing, and I definitely won't say that it is literature, but what it is is simply an extra Deep Space 9 episode for those who want more than the seven seasons worth of episodes that are out there.
The interesting thing about Ferengi is that they are entirely driven by profit, and the whole idea of consumer protection is anathema to them. However, it is strange that this series, which is pretty much produced in America, has the main characters, namely the Federation, look down upon the Ferengi for their motivations, when in reality that is the predominant motivation for the American culture. In fact, the whole concept of what makes up the Star Trek universe seems to be at odds with the culture that produces it. Maybe, in a way, there is an underlying conciousness within the American culture, that sees the pursuit of profit and power to actually be wrong, but are so caught up in the pursuit that they are unable to break away from it. Also, it generally has less to do with making money for the sake of making money and more to do with making money to live a comfortable lifestyle. The reason that the Federation frowns on this is simply because they already have their comfortable lifestyles so no longer need to actually pursue profit for the sake of that lifestyle. However, lifestyle only plays a second fiddle in the Ferengi world as it appears that they seek profit simply for the sake of making profit.
I can't say that this will be the last of the Star Trek books that I will read as there are others out there than I wouldn't mind getting my hands on (such as The Battle of Betazed) however, as mentioned, it can be difficult finding them as they all tend to be out of print, and I suspect that they are not writing many more of the books. Further, these books are generally not considered to be canon, though they do try to fit in with the series. However, as mentioned (I think) previously, the one thing that I found annoying with Deep Space Nine is that when they took the final fight against the Dominion, there was no sign of Captain Picard. One wonders why such a well known and experienced member of Starfleet is not at the front lines fighting the war. Maybe it has more to do with not having an actor upstage the main actor or character.½

Not memorable. An OK little beach book written by the actor who plays Quark on Star Trek Deep Space 9.