A Stitch in Time by Andrew Robinson
I’m a huge Star Trek fan in general and especially a fan of Deep Space Nine. And if, like me, you’re a DS9 fan then you’ve already heard about A Stitch in Time. This book is wildly popular among fans for a reason—it’s just as good, if not better, than everyone says.
It’s so impressive and fun that Robinson cared about his character so much as to create this book, giving us a look into Garak’s life pre- and post-DS9. Garak is a character steeped in mystery (and misdirection) and so fans have always been reasonably curious about what his whole deal is. One thing I found myself thinking often as I listened to the audiobook (narrated by Andrew Robinson himself) was the veracity of any given scene. Garak, famously, is a character who lies all the time. Like, this is a fairly well-known quote from the show:
Garak: My dear doctor, they’re all true.
Dr. Bashir: Even the lies?
Garak: Especially the lies.
For Garak, truth and lies do not exist as two ends of a spectrum. They aren’t diametrically opposed. So reading the book and trying to find what’s true and what is meant to reveal a different kind of truth was very fun. I do believe that this book is as capable as Garak is capable of being, but that still means that he’s probably lying about at least half of what happens. There’s a few specific scenes where the thing that happens is so cinematic, so thematically perfect, that I’m convinced he’s lying. Not just that it happened that way because it’s a book, but that it happened that way because it’s an epistolary book where Garak is writing a letter to another person (the Dr. Bashir from the quote above, in fact). Someone is intended to read this.
All that to say—if you like DS9 and haven’t read this yet, what are you doing? If you like Sci-Fi and haven’t read this, what are you doing? If you like incredible audiobooks and haven’t found a copy of this at your library or on audible—what are you doing?? Please read this book.
But what people lie about the most are themselves, and these lies become the stories they believe and want to tell you.