A Stitch in Time by Andrew Robinson

I read this book by checking out the pdf from internet archive and reading the pdf in my duckduckgo app browser on my phone because i hate apps

I read this book because I love Star Trek but I'm all tved out; I'm currently watching season 6 of ds9 and they keep teasing Jadzia's death and I am simply not digging it. I really liked this book because I think Andrew Robinson does such a good job playing Garak and he captured Garak's voice so nicely for this story. A Stitch in Time takes place after the fall of the cardasssian empire and the withdrawal of the dominion, I haven't finished ds9 yet so I didn't understand a few references to events but it did not harm my reading experiences. The story is told through letters to Dr Julian Bashir from Garak describing the reconstruction of Cardassia while Garak is staying in the rubble of Enabran Tain's house, as well as a memoir style telling of his life experience starting with his initiation into adulthood and ending with his exile from cardassia, it also occasionally retells events from the transition of Terok Nor to Deep Space Nine and on the station during the Dominion War.

I definitely enjoyed the "memoir entries" the most because Garak is such a mysterious character on the show it was very fun to read his backstory (and it was given the added dimension of is he lying here like he lied when he was dying from the torture pleasure wire). The most astonishing part of the story was finding out Gul Dukat's name is Skrain???? thats a weird fucking name. The cardassian reconstruction entries became more interesting as the memoir progressed and characters from the memoir started appearing again in the remains of cardassia prime. There was a very interesting vein of discussion about the "Hebitians" who are the species/race that the cardassians replaced/evolved from, it was a little hazy to me but I felt that very much added to the effect they had on the story. The terok nor stuff was fun for me to read because i love tailor garak but they were definitely the least interesting letters. I had a few good daydreams prompted by the statement that cardassian social norms are built on their natural "reptile mind" desire for domination, maybe we like jokes because monkeys like jokes, just like the cardassians like hot rocks because lizards like hot rocks.

Overall, I recommend A Stitch in Time if you've watched a decent chunk of ds9, its quality as a story is definitely enhanced by knowing some star trek lore or else all the neck ridge talk might weird you out.