Paula M. Block
Author of Strange New Worlds
About the Author
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Works by Paula M. Block
The Wolves and the Lambs Affair & The Final Affair — Author — 1 copy
Associated Works
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Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1952-02-14
- Gender
- female
- Relationships
- Erdmann, Terry J. (husband)
- Short biography
- Paula M. Block (born 14 February 1952) oversees licensed Star Trek publishing for Paramount Pictures and, as of 2006, CBS. She has worked closely with the editors at Pocket Books since 1989, and is perhaps best known to fans for her role in co-editing Pocket's Strange New Worlds series – a collection of fan-submitted short stories.
She and husband Terry J. Erdmann co-wrote the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion, The Secrets of Star Trek: Insurrection, the introduction of the DS9 anthology Prophecy and Change, and two reference books, Star Trek 101 and Star Trek: The Original Series 365. - Nationality
- USA
- Places of residence
- Southern Oregon, USA
- Map Location
- Oregon, USA
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Reviews
This book finally brings an end to a depressing five-year gap without a Deep Space Nine book. Sure, we've had Deep Space 9 books, but not Deep Space Nine books, if you see what I mean. The last one was a moving epic about one young man with a backdrop of an entire civilization's rise and fall, so what's this one about?
Well, it's about Quark trying to find some good porn.
Uh, okay.
Look, I know these novellas are trying to emulate a tv episode more than your average prose release from Simon & show more Schuster, and there are several Quark episodes this is clearly intended to remind you of, like "Who Mourns for Morn?" or "Rules of Acquisition." But the best Quark episodes were 1) actually funny, 2) had a somewhat serious core somewhere, and 3) were actually about Quark! That last one is where this all falls down for me. Quark tries to track down the rest of a Vulcan's Love Slave sequel, and goes to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet and battles with the Orion Syndicate, but basically none of his choices move the narrative at all. He gets himself out of no dangers, he does nothing clever or interesting. This is the dumb Quark of the worst DS9 episodes. At the end, we learn three other characters manipulated him and everything he did was pointless and then the book stops. He learns nothing, and we learn nothing. I was genuinely surprised when I got to the end: "That's it?" Like, that was all this book was for?
On screen, Armin Shimerman might have made you believe in this stuff (he could do that with weak scripts on screen), but on the page this all lies pretty flat. Quark can be shallow, but this is ridiculously shallow even for him; it's like the tv show never happened. Quark gets a dumb "comedy" sidekick, and I kept expecting some kind of reveal about him, but no, he's just a dumb "comedy" sidekick, and his role would have been much more interestingly taken by just about any other character.
Even at its short length, it's a joke that goes on too long.
Continuity Notes:
Well, it's about Quark trying to find some good porn.
Uh, okay.
Look, I know these novellas are trying to emulate a tv episode more than your average prose release from Simon & show more Schuster, and there are several Quark episodes this is clearly intended to remind you of, like "Who Mourns for Morn?" or "Rules of Acquisition." But the best Quark episodes were 1) actually funny, 2) had a somewhat serious core somewhere, and 3) were actually about Quark! That last one is where this all falls down for me. Quark tries to track down the rest of a Vulcan's Love Slave sequel, and goes to Wrigley's Pleasure Planet and battles with the Orion Syndicate, but basically none of his choices move the narrative at all. He gets himself out of no dangers, he does nothing clever or interesting. This is the dumb Quark of the worst DS9 episodes. At the end, we learn three other characters manipulated him and everything he did was pointless and then the book stops. He learns nothing, and we learn nothing. I was genuinely surprised when I got to the end: "That's it?" Like, that was all this book was for?
On screen, Armin Shimerman might have made you believe in this stuff (he could do that with weak scripts on screen), but on the page this all lies pretty flat. Quark can be shallow, but this is ridiculously shallow even for him; it's like the tv show never happened. Quark gets a dumb "comedy" sidekick, and I kept expecting some kind of reveal about him, but no, he's just a dumb "comedy" sidekick, and his role would have been much more interestingly taken by just about any other character.
Even at its short length, it's a joke that goes on too long.
Continuity Notes:
- We're told in this book that since the dedication of the new Deep Space 9, business at Quark's has been totally dead. So what about that massive crowd there to watch the new president's inauguration in Fire with Fire, huh?
- Thank goodness the book specifically mentioned Photons Be Free, because I never would have remembered that Broht was a screen character otherwise. (Here we learn he publishes basically every significant holoprogram seen on screen.)
- Thankfully, for us font-watchers, the book maintains the DS9 relaunch logo, and doesn't Rotis Serifize it as the TNG relaunch logo was. If this book had a spine, it would look good on my shelf!
- One of the big problems about the Destiny time jump and then the lack of DS9 novels is that all of the characters seem to have been in stasis the entire time. It's been almost a decade since Quark and Ro first dated back in Mission: Gamma, and apparently their relationship has not progressed since.
- The writers keep confusing "vedek" with "vedic." Unlike all the errors in Absent Enemies, this one remains uncorrected eight years later.
"But the sun seldom shines above Bowog Bog."
This brings the Block/Erdmann Quark trilogy to a close, though this one has a stronger focus on Odo, especially at first. Quark learns that an uncle of his is dead and he might inherit... except Rom recently made it legal for wives to inherit, and his uncle has three! So Quark goes to Ferenginar to try to woo them, but disappears; Odo, at a loose end waiting for Federation bureaucracy to resolve the issue of the Dominion refugees following the show more events of The Long Mirage, reluctantly volunteers to go to Ferenginar and find Quark.
It's fun enough, probably my favorite of the three of these enovellas. The humor is a bit broad and sometimes overegged (there's a joke about Rom wearing a hat that's laid on way too thick), but I think the Ferengi work best when there's some kind of cultural contrast, and it's more entertaining to read about Odo trying to navigate Ferengi society than Quark trying to navigate it. Block and Erdmann have a strong grasp of Odo's voice, and enjoy seeing him in the familiar role of investigator, instead of the wishy-washy ex-Dominion leader he is in George's stories. I wish the mystery was more of a genuine mystery; once Quark reenters the story, things get a bit less interesting.
But it's fun to see Odo encounter different aspects of Ferengi culture. We get to meet a Ferengi homicide investigator—and we learn there's so little violent crime on Ferenginar they have just one guy who investigates it and he still doesn't have much to do! This is opposed to the huge Ferengi Commerce Authority devoted to combating financial crime. I zipped through it (hard not to, it's so short), and I had a good enough time.
Continuity Notes:
This brings the Block/Erdmann Quark trilogy to a close, though this one has a stronger focus on Odo, especially at first. Quark learns that an uncle of his is dead and he might inherit... except Rom recently made it legal for wives to inherit, and his uncle has three! So Quark goes to Ferenginar to try to woo them, but disappears; Odo, at a loose end waiting for Federation bureaucracy to resolve the issue of the Dominion refugees following the show more events of The Long Mirage, reluctantly volunteers to go to Ferenginar and find Quark.
It's fun enough, probably my favorite of the three of these enovellas. The humor is a bit broad and sometimes overegged (there's a joke about Rom wearing a hat that's laid on way too thick), but I think the Ferengi work best when there's some kind of cultural contrast, and it's more entertaining to read about Odo trying to navigate Ferengi society than Quark trying to navigate it. Block and Erdmann have a strong grasp of Odo's voice, and enjoy seeing him in the familiar role of investigator, instead of the wishy-washy ex-Dominion leader he is in George's stories. I wish the mystery was more of a genuine mystery; once Quark reenters the story, things get a bit less interesting.
But it's fun to see Odo encounter different aspects of Ferengi culture. We get to meet a Ferengi homicide investigator—and we learn there's so little violent crime on Ferenginar they have just one guy who investigates it and he still doesn't have much to do! This is opposed to the huge Ferengi Commerce Authority devoted to combating financial crime. I zipped through it (hard not to, it's so short), and I had a good enough time.
Continuity Notes:
- Some of these DS9 enovellas have slotted into their timeline slots kind of awkwardly, but this one picks up from the end of The Long Mirage fairly well; the status quo for all the characters is pretty much as David R. George III left it.
- Quark insists the Rules of Acquisition can't be amended and haven't been for 10,000 years, but on-screen evidence indicates this is not correct; we know from Enterprise that there were fewer rules in the twenty-second century than there are in the twenty-fourth.
- Rom designs a communication device and Odo shifts his own comm badge to match the new design. I don't really buy that Odo can successfully imitate comm badge components on the molecular level, but I think my preferred explanation (Odo pins a real comm badge to himself) probably doesn't hold up either.
- Rom also gets excited that he "actually invented something." What about those self-replicating mines?
- There's a character here named "Quirk"; we learn that both "Quirk" and "Quark" are derived from the "same Ferengi word for 'splattered mud,' but different regions have different mud..."
- "Everybody makes jokes about the 113th Rule: 'Always have sex with the boss.'" Including Quark himself, in Legends of the Ferengi.
- Never thought I would read a clear Virginia Woolf reference in a Quark comedy story.
- Okay, but surely someone ought to say, "Forget it Quark, it's Ferenginar," at some point?
This book is aimed directly at the original series Star Trek Fan, the one who can spend 10 minutes staring at a close up color photo of a phaser or a tricorder, who finds delight in reading little details about well known episodes, and who can appreciate the beauty and information in this brick of a book. The pictures recall well the special wonder and excitement that grew with this unique, now practically ancestral sci-fi tv show.
It's less of a straight through read and more of an 'open at show more random' book, which suits me fine. It also includes pictures and information about Star Trek's early years of "Afterlife", when conventions and novels and concordiums began to appear. While a perfectly good entry way for someone who (somehow) knows little about the series, it's really aimed at those who spend long hours discussing the real nature of Spock's emotional life and who possibly have owned one pair of fake Vulcan ears. show less
It's less of a straight through read and more of an 'open at show more random' book, which suits me fine. It also includes pictures and information about Star Trek's early years of "Afterlife", when conventions and novels and concordiums began to appear. While a perfectly good entry way for someone who (somehow) knows little about the series, it's really aimed at those who spend long hours discussing the real nature of Spock's emotional life and who possibly have owned one pair of fake Vulcan ears. show less
I pretty much bounced off Block & Erdmann's previous DS9 novella, which had little of substance to say about Quark and also not terribly funny jokes. This, of course, makes it of a piece with the Quark/Ferengi television episodes it sought to emulate, which were hit-and-miss at best.* For me, the Ferengi episodes were at their worst when they totally took place within the Ferengi sphere (e.g., "Ferengi Love Songs," "Profit and Lace") and at their best when they involved some element of show more cultural clash, the intrusion of something from outside Ferengi society (e.g., "The Magnificent Ferengi," "Body Parts," "Little Green Men"). Quark can be a great character, but he is rarely so in the purely Ferengi episodes; the better Quark episodes are ones like "House of Quark" and "Profit and Loss" and "Business as Usual" where Quark is put into unusual situations that test who he is.
At first, Rules of Accusation is a lot like one of the worse Ferengi episodes. Quark has a new wacky scheme to get business; Rom will dedicate the new station bar as the Ferengi embassy to Bajor, and the big attraction will be the first showing of the original handwritten manuscript of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition in decades. There's lots of stuff about Quark planning his scheme, and "funny" Ferengi names and customs and such; basically every Ferengi you ever saw on the show pops up.
This is all set up, but it goes on a bit too long before things finally go wrong, which is when the book kicks into gear; you will not be surprised to learn that the manuscript disappears. But, technically the bar is Ferengi soil so Starfleet's worst security chief, Jefferson Blackmer, has no authority to investigate... so Quark is forced to call upon Odo. Then things get fun, with a series of interviews and investigations and twists. It's fun to have Odo and Quark interacting, and I think I genuinely laughed a couple times.
This is good, enjoyable stuff... but then the novel fizzles out. Neither Odo nor Quark actually solve their own problems. Worst of all, the book doesn't really tell us anything about Quark: the best Quark episodes showed us something about his values. As happened too often in the early seasons of the show, this is just another wacky Quark scheme that goes horribly wrong and leaves everything exactly as it was before. What's disappointing is that I really enjoyed the second half of the book up until that ending; I feel like it wouldn't have required much rewriting to give this overly frothy novella the exact right amount of oomph.
Continuity Notes:
At first, Rules of Accusation is a lot like one of the worse Ferengi episodes. Quark has a new wacky scheme to get business; Rom will dedicate the new station bar as the Ferengi embassy to Bajor, and the big attraction will be the first showing of the original handwritten manuscript of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition in decades. There's lots of stuff about Quark planning his scheme, and "funny" Ferengi names and customs and such; basically every Ferengi you ever saw on the show pops up.
This is all set up, but it goes on a bit too long before things finally go wrong, which is when the book kicks into gear; you will not be surprised to learn that the manuscript disappears. But, technically the bar is Ferengi soil so Starfleet's worst security chief, Jefferson Blackmer, has no authority to investigate... so Quark is forced to call upon Odo. Then things get fun, with a series of interviews and investigations and twists. It's fun to have Odo and Quark interacting, and I think I genuinely laughed a couple times.
This is good, enjoyable stuff... but then the novel fizzles out. Neither Odo nor Quark actually solve their own problems. Worst of all, the book doesn't really tell us anything about Quark: the best Quark episodes showed us something about his values. As happened too often in the early seasons of the show, this is just another wacky Quark scheme that goes horribly wrong and leaves everything exactly as it was before. What's disappointing is that I really enjoyed the second half of the book up until that ending; I feel like it wouldn't have required much rewriting to give this overly frothy novella the exact right amount of oomph.
Continuity Notes:
- The "Historian's Note" places this novel after The Missing and before Sacraments of Fire. The Missing takes place in late November 2385, but Sacraments of Fire actually takes place September through December 2385. Presumably this really means before part II of Sacraments, which is when the action jumps to December. The details kind of, but don't totally, line up. On the one hand, Odo is chilling on the station—he came aboard in The Missing and decided to stick around, so that fits. Additionally, Nog is away on assignment; he left in The Fall: The Poisoned Chalice, and doesn't come back until part II of Sacraments. (This is a bit of shame, because it makes Nog basically the only Ferengi character not to appear in the book; no reunion with his father.)
- On the other hand, Sisko is on the station (though he leaves with the Robinson partway through the story), but part II of Sacraments indicates he's been gone from DS9 for three months. Also, we're told Odo is waiting for Sisko to be free to take him to see the Changeling, but in fact Sisko doesn't say he'll be taking Odo until part II of Sacraments; at the time this is set, Odo knows the Federation found a Changeling-like life-form but doesn't know where it is or have an indication of how he'll get there.
- When the characters need to check something on Ferenginar, it's decided Odo will do it because it's quicker for him to shapeshift into a spacegoing life-form than to take a shuttle... though then we're told Odo's form can "move at a rapid clip, just shy of warp speed"! So just a few decades to Ferenginar and back? One might infer the writers of this book don't know much about the Star Trek universe.
- Morn is in this... quite a lot actually. He technically doesn't speak, because the book uses indirect speech to describe what he says, but this goes on quite a bit, to the extent of whole conversations. I didn't like it; might follow the letter of law, but it breaks the spirit. When it comes to Morn, less is more. All of the Morn scenes could have been substantially trimmed.
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- 24
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