Outside of Peter David’s New Frontier novels, the DS9 re-launch is the best thing going in Trek publishing right now. (The Titan series could jump up there given time).

What’s amazing about the DS9 books is that unlike David’s New Frontier series which has one author and one vision, the DS9 novels are written by a handful of different writers, each of whom brings their strengths to the stories but yet there’s a consistent feel and direction to these books.

It’s been over a year since the last installment of the World’s of Deep Space Nine hit the shelves, leaving many characters lives in chaos and the series at a crossroads. David Mack’s Warpath picks up literally seconds after the stories of Worlds of DS9 and doesn’t let up to the final page. This one of those books that is instantly addictive. The story shifts from one plot thread to another (there are about three running) but you never feel as if one is being short changed. Instead, all three are interesting and compelling and while we concentrate a good deal on Kira, Ro, Vaughn, Tarrantar and Prynn, the novel does allow us a glimpse of how the other characters are doing and reacting to events.

And while we do get a good bit of Tarrantar and Vaughn, the real star of this book is Pyrnn. She’s been one of the lesser developed charaters of the re-launch, but Mack handles her with ease and confidence here. She’s the star of the show and my opinion of the character changed over the course of the book—for the better.

In TV terms, this is the season premiere for the DS9 reluanch. It will bring you up to speed on what’s going on in the universe quickly and it starts to set up things for future books to examine (not soon enough in my estimation….I need a new book now!). If you’re new to the series, while you can jump in and Mack does a great job of explaining where things are, you still may be lost. I recommend it, but only if you’re willing to invest the time to catch-up on the series. The series is worth is and Warpath will be that much better.