I’ve never been bashful about my love of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I’ve used it to talk about the “alien-ness” of various Trek series, looked back at the DS9 young adult novels, and wrote forty-one entries on the DS9 relaunch stories that continued the crew’s adventures well past the series finale. In turn, this led to a discussion of the grand climax of the unified Trek “Litverse” with the Coda trilogy, which featured several key DS9 characters.
While we’ve seen the publication of one DS9 standalone novel—Alex White’s Revenant (2021)—and it’s not impossible that more might surface eventually, the post-Litverse focus has understandably been on supporting recent live-action and animated series, with a number of new novels and audio dramas tying in to Discovery, Picard, Strange New Worlds, and Prodigy. Despite some thoroughly pleasurable outings in these television series, none of them have so far managed to displace DS9 as my personal favorite Trek of all time. 2023 saw the launch of Star Trek: Defiant, a new comic book series issued by IDW featuring DS9 characters, but I wasn’t really expecting new DS9 prose fiction any time soon.
All of which makes The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko not only somewhat of a surprise but a particular treat. Following the format established in works covering the lives of James T. Kirk, Jean-Luc Picard, Kathryn Janeway, and Mr. Spock, this volume offers Sisko’s reminiscences about pivotal moments in his life—some loud, some quiet—and his general reflections on topics like morality, responsibility, leadership, betrayal, grief, and love.
The book’s conceit, as conveyed in the introduction, is that some time after Sisko’s departure from corporeal existence in “What You Leave Behind,” an energy beam containing an encrypted message emanates from the wormhole. Nog realizes it includes Sisko’s old command codes, and after it’s been decoded Jake spends two years sorting through the fifty hours of video in the message and creating a chronologically-ordered transcript of what he considers the most relevant passages. In our reality—and who knows, all of DS9’s grand story, along with every one of us, might be contained within a Benny Russell dream—Derek Tyler Attico is the weaver of the tale.
From its very start, going back to the pilot episode, DS9 set itself apart from other Trek shows by having its lead character contending with single parenthood and learning to deal with being revered as a major figure in an alien religion. As Sisko says in Chapter Twenty-Two of this book, “When she [Kai Opaka] told me I was to be the Emissary, I honestly thought it was a lot of what we used to call mumbo jumbo, but now I see how far ahead, and patient, Opaka was with me. She was not a nonlinear entity, but her faith gave her the ability to see far beyond all of us.” Which brings us to another key point: Sisko was not only perceived as critically important in the Bajoran faith, but was later revealed to have an actual touch of alien within him, since his biological mother had been inhabited by one of the nonlinear wormhole-dwelling aliens commonly called Prophets by the Bajorans when she conceived him.
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The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko
Sisko’s Autobiography honors this unique legacy in three ways. First, the narrative leaves Sisko in the otherworldly realm, his fate unresolved. Having him return safely to linear spacetime and reconnect with his family, of course, would have been a valid imaginative choice, and it was one ultimately taken by the relaunch novels. However, a core part of Sisko’s story is intriguing precisely because of his nonhuman provenance, and I think that attempting to “solve” that mystery, while also covering his entire life leading up to it, could potentially be unsatisfying and overwhelming in the scope of a single book. Attico does a fine job of making Sisko relatable by emphasizing that despite Sisko’s special place beyond linear existence, he sees himself as an ordinary mortal:
Even later, when I became comfortable as the Emissary and the responsibility it carried, I still never wanted or sought the power or the influence. Regardless of my lineage, I am not a messiah, or some magical being. I am just what I have always been.
A man.
The second way the Autobiography gets Sisko right is by having his message fundamentally be about connecting with his son. Sisko here imparts the lessons he has learned through a difficult and eventful life, while encouraging Jake to continue forging his own path and being his own man.
Thirdly, because Sisko’s signal originates in a nonlinear realm, Attico is able to introduce some arresting shifts in time—as for instance when, at the end of Chapter Eight, the scene transitions to B’hala as it was 20,000 years in the past. I won’t spoil what Sisko observes there, but it does answer a sixth-season question left open-ended by the series.
The sense we get is of Sisko not only poring over his life in order to share a measure of wisdom and grace with his son—and in a way, to give his son the permission he might need in order to live fully without him, nicely underscored by a reference to “The Visitor”—but of journeying through his own nature in order to better understand himself. “It is the unknown that defines our existence,” maintained DS9’s pilot, and in this chronicle the unknown continues to inform our central character.
Having established that we won’t be moving forward in the post-finale timeline, Attico wisely places the emphasis of Sisko’s recollections on the episodes of his life about which we know least. The early chapters are considerably longer and more descriptive than the ones where Sisko catches up with his posting to Deep Space Nine in 2369 and we revisit events we’ve seen unfold on-screen. These childhood and adolescent vignettes and escapades add a welcome richness of character and warmth to a tough, complex figure. Sisko’s early years are characterized by strong familial bonds, Creole cooking, jazz, and the ever-recurring presence of New Orleans itself. It’s an intoxicating combination. We learn of Grandpa James and Grandma Octavia (named after James Baldwin and Octavia Butler respectively). We follow along with an overeager Sisko who suffers an accident that leaves him immobilized for six months, during which time he develops a fascination with model starships. Later, he attends Booker T. Washington Public High School and experiences bullying; then eventually, first love.
Sisko’s observations occur every couple of pages, as for instance when he reflects on the importance of teachers in Chapter Two:
I’ve been in Starfleet for over twenty years. I’ve seen some very impressive technology and breakthroughs, but the truth is that the future isn’t built with technology or even by engineers. The future is built by teachers. Every mind that is educated, every consciousness that is opened to new ideas and different ways of thinking, is a brick paving the way toward tomorrow.
I’ll share two more examples. In the same chapter, Sisko crafts a lovely analogy between two very different crews:
I’d watch the kitchen crew cooking, cutting, cleaning, and arranging food on dishes like they were works of art. Everyone would work independently, but also in unison, not unlike the bridge of a starship.
And in Chapter Three, Sisko muses on death itself as a great unknown, harkening back to the comments I made earlier:
You know Jake, I think of all of the advancements of humanity, of all the things we’ve accomplished and overcome over the years. Climate change, racism, poverty, disease. But humans still have a hard time dealing with death. Perhaps it’s because, despite all we have achieved, it is still a great unknown.
As I hope is illustrated by these excerpts, Attico convincingly channels Sisko’s voice, which is no small feat. It makes the entire journey convincing. His writing combines the plain and down-to-earth with more poetic beats, as when Sisko speaks of people “frozen in the amber of grief.” These stylistic choices reinforce Sisko’s compelling mixture of perseverance and sensitivity.
For fans of Trek lore, there’s a wealth of it to enjoy here. Many characters from across the Trek continuum have cameos or are referenced: Doctor Pulaski, Zefram Cochrane, Solok, Admiral Owen Paris, Cal Hudson, Philippa Georgiou and Michael Burnham, Kosinski, Tryla Scott and Admiral Savar, Geordi La Forge, Leah Brahms, Elizabeth Shelby and others I don’t want to reveal. Too many? Possibly. I did get a kick out of Sisko mentioning Mardah, the Bajoran dabo girl Jake dated in Seasons 2 and 3. At one point Sisko receives a copy of Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Fundamentals of Starships and Engineering, samples “Vulcan’s Forge” ice cream, and so on. You get the idea. And of course this couldn’t be a bona fide DS9 book without a reference to self-sealing stem bolts; Attico obliges on page 112 of the hardcover edition. In terms of episodes, some of the references I found particularly delightful, often because I didn’t expect them, were, in no particular order, to TNG’s “Identity Crisis,” DS9’s “Explorers,” “Past Tense, Part I” and “Past Tense, Part II,” “The Quickening,” “Captive Pursuit,” “Battle Lines,” “Paradise,” “Second Sight,” “Tacking Into the Wind,” and “The Siege of AR-558.” In case this sounds overwhelming, it’s not. While picking up on Attico’s plentiful references enhances Sisko’s account, it’s not necessary to enjoy it.
Complementing the writing, the book features a neat insert with color photographs from various stages of Sisko’s life. (An aside: one of these shows a 1973 issue of Incredible Tales of Scientific Wonder with a DS9 story—but I thought, per “Far Beyond the Stars,” that Benny Russell was writing these in the 1950s? Maybe it’s a reprint!).
The chapters leading up to Sisko’s assuming command of the titular station see him meeting Curzon Dax, serving aboard several starships, and enduring trying war experiences, first with the Tzenkethi and more traumatically in Wolf 359. Sisko’s compassionate reconsideration of Picard as a victim of the Borg leads to a wonderful line: “When you let go of hate, the first person you free is yourself.” Of course, Avery Brooks is mentioned in the Acknowledgments at the end of the book. If this volume is adapted into an audiobook, I would love for Cirroc Lofton to narrate it—how immersive, and affecting, that would be.
Though each of the previous Trek “autobiographies” have things to recommend them, for my latinum this is the best one yet. It truly capitalizes on the possibilities of the form, fleshing out, in a deeply hopeful and humanistic fashion, one of Trek’s most enduring and commanding characters. It doesn’t offer pat solutions to life’s difficulties, but inspires us to meet them as best we can. “I came to this station when I didn’t care about it,” Sisko notes with bracing honesty while looking back on the Dominion conflict, “and I had to abandon it during a war when I didn’t want to be anywhere else.”
Just as the Celestial Temple here serves as Sisko’s place of contemplation away from home, so for many of us Deep Space Nine came to represent a special fictional abode where we found ourselves exploring fascinating questions. The show became our own wormhole of possibilities, which we are now free to experience, as Sisko does time itself, in whatever order we choose. When I ranked all of the post-finale DS9 books, Andrew J. Robinson’s confessional epic about Garak, A Stitch in Time, was one of my top picks. Without a doubt, the very differently-spiced The Autobiography of Benjamin Sisko, a thoughtful valentine to the series, represents another high point in this expanded universe.
If this turns out to be the final in-world Star Trek autobiography, I’d find it a fitting conclusion to the series. And if they keep going, here’s my suggestion for one that could be packed with bombshell revelations: The Autobiography of Liam Boothby, Starfleet’s Constant Groundskeeper.
Have you picked up this latest installment, or are you currently reading any Star Trek novels or comic books? Please let me know whatever you’re enjoying!
Alvaro Zinos-Amaro is a Hugo- and Locus-award finalist who has published over fifty stories and one hundred essays, reviews, and interviews in professional markets. These include Analog, Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Galaxy’s Edge, Nature, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Locus, Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Clarkesworld, The Year’s Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, Cyber World, Nox Pareidolia, Multiverses: An Anthology of Alternate Realities, and many others. Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg was published in 2016 to critical acclaim. Being Michael Swanwick, out in November 2023, is Alvaro’s second book of interviews. His debut novel, Equimedian, is forthcoming in 2024.
