Inferno

I've often wondered just how novels based on television shows can go for the whole epic, "world shall be destroyed" theme and have things fit in with the continuation of the televised stories later on. Of course therein arises the world of canon, to which the Star Trek novels do not belong. however from what little I know of Deep Space Nines history, these texts go a long way to enforcing in-universe integrity.

it is clear that the amount of research put into them is great indeed. Minor things evident in the first novel only now resolve themselves, and as with most time travel jaunts, do so in a spectacularly mind-bending way. that's not to say that a reader is left confused, by any means; everything that happens is clarified and explained by the conclusion of the trilogy.

I can still never quite shake off the yoke of "its time travel, and was erased from time, therefore it never happened". it's not a Star Trek thing per se (although Voyager's "year of hell" was one example), but it does crop up from time-to-time in fiction. Even so, this series takes DS9 from its very first on-screen showing, to years before, to decades after and back again, all from a post "what you leave behind" POV. I would recommend that if you are a serious fan and do care to know the ins and outs of everything, watch the end of the TV series first. Although you're probably two-thirds of the way through the trilogy or something by the time you're reading this, so alas I shall shut up.