The book is full of political machinations. It can be hard to follow with Kira and the two Iliana Ghemors all posing as the Intendant at one time or another. This is not for the casual DS9 fan. You need to be very familiar with all the complexities of both universes to follow the complicated goings on ( )

With this volume of the Deep Space Nine relaunch, the long mirror universe story that was kicked off in Worlds of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Volume Two (2005) finally draws to a close. And thank goodness: it's been a long, slow journey. Despite my high enjoyment of Olivia Woods's previous contribution to the series, Fearful Symmetry, I found this one a bit flat. There's a lot of running around, and not even by our protagonists, who contribute distressingly little to the story. Furthermore, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that with a few exceptions, the flatly characterized mirror universe is just not as effective on the page as the screen-- and putting the strongly characterized DS9 characters in there just highlights the problem. What really bothers me is that Fearful Symmetry gave Iliana Ghemor a complex backstory and strong character... but that felt entirely pointless here, as she became just another sneering madwoman. Not outright bad, but pretty subaverage, as well as easily one of the worst DS9 relaunch stories so far.