The Cylons' Secret: 01/01/07

Last month I was one of a lucky few to be given two books based on the new Battlestar Galactica series. In order of publication, The Cylons' Secret is the second book. While the cover art may sport "Number Six" looking both beautiful and menacing, she has nothing (thank goodness!) to do with the plot.

In fact, there are only three characters from the series in this book, the rest are new characters as this is a prequel right in the middle of that time listed as "The Cylons Send No One" in the opening credits of season one. Save for the invention of four ships larger than the Battlestars, the tries to connect the dots left in the flash backs of Tigh, Adama and Zarek's lives. While the story itself may not be canonical (good novelizations rarely are) it does offer interesting interpretations of these three characters that adds something to their characterization in the series.

The story itself reminded me a bit of Alan Dean Foster's interpretation of The Black Hole (1979) as it is told from the perspective of a group of outsiders trying to find the truth behind a station long since forgotten and apparently populated both by humans and Cylons. I liked how Gardener explores the tension between the four humans and the companions. Also some of the choices that the Cylons make for how the treat humans in this book provide some possible explanations for why the future Cylons "evolved" as they have.

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