This review contains spoilers on a number of Star Trek novels.
I've red a number of novels of the Deep Space Nine relaunch, but I like stories focussing on Bajor and at first I thought something like: Well, what's Jake doing in the Gamma quadrant?
But I've already read Unity and some other novels by S.D.Perry and I really like her style of writing and her view on the different characters and I wanted to read something from DS9 and it was the only one they had in the bookshop, so I read it.
And it is great. I like Jake, though he isn't one of my favourite characters, but a story focussing on Jake alone seemed a bit boring (I found it even annoying sometimes in The Worlds of Deep Space Nine: Bajor, though I like the book in general), but it isn't. Well, it's a Star Trek novel, I had already read Unity and knew Benjamin Sisko wouldn't come back before that and as Opaka was on the cover - well, we get everyone back in Science Fiction - I was quite sure, it was her Jake would bring back to Bajor in the end.
But that doesn't really matter, because this really isn't about space fights or heroes or whatever, this is Star Trek and Star Trek is about people and this novel is about Jake looking for his father. About Jake trying to understand why the Prophets took him away from him, about Jake making friends - quite unusual friends, one could say - that don't see him only as an appendix of his father.
And the characters on the Even Odds are equally complex characters. You get to know them as Jake gets to know them, even better and you get their viewpoint as well.
And that ship is Star Trek in its essence. It assembles a number of very diverse characters that because of some circumstances have to get along. And they make it by everyone doing what he is best in and somehow they begin to like each other though they couldn't be more different, though they would never really admit it.
In Rising Son Jake travels to the Gamma Quadrant and gets rescued from his damaged shuttle by the crew of the named ship, the Even Odds, who salvage goods from certain planets. They are fortune hunters without a very elaborate code of morale, but they are very tolerant and good friends and they take on Jake readily, because the captain sees in Jake's search for his father a lot of his own situation.
Jake becomes part of their crew and even thinks of staying and not going back home, when on a planet they meet a quite confuse Tosk and subsequently Opaka and a strange girl named Wex (whoever has read Unity already knows a lot more about her). The Tosk seems to have deviated from his original programming and Jake, Opaka, Wex and the crew of the Even Odds follow him on a search that in the end leads them to a species that has lain dormant for thousands of years and also knows about the Bajoran Prophets and has a similar though in some elementary points quite different concept of religion. And they also learn of a new threat to the Prophets and to Bajor...
It's really a very good novel, the story is great, the characters are great (and because nobody needs to put it on screen they are quite strange looking etc.) and the story develops the concept of the Bajoran religion and the Celestial Temple to a new level which makes it even more interesting.
And well, in the end even Weyoun makes an appearance and he really hasn't changed at all...
Samstag, 27. Juli 2013
Mittwoch, 24. Juli 2013
Alice Levine (editor): Byron's Poetry and Prose
The critical edition presented here is extraordinary already in that sense that it is a critical edition with all the characteristics a critical edition should have to a very, very reasonable price.
The book contains first a large selection of Byron's works, namely a selection of his poetry, the full texts of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, The Giaour, The Prison of Chillon, Manfred, Beppo and The Vision of Judgement. It also contains parts of Don Juan which I personally would have loved to see included complete, but I suppose this wasn't possible because of the limited space a one volume book has. The selection of poetry is in my opinion a very reasonable one including not only such typical Byron texts like She walks in Beauty, but also the satiric English Bards and Scotch Reviewers and early poems like I would I were a careless child, which I personally think is very beautiful, and of course a lot more.
The texts are presented with an introduction explaining the background of each text and there are footnotes explaining certain words or metaphors. This is on one hand very useful because you have the notes right there when you are reading, on the other hand it sometimes disturbs the reader as there are quite a lot of footnotes. I would also question the necessity of some of the footnotes because for example that Andalusia is in the south of Spain is quite well known and not really necessary to be put into a footnote. On the other hand this may be known to me because Spain is geographically rather near and in other parts of the world - Alice Levine is a professor at a New York university - that may not be quite so obvious.
There is also, as should be in a critical edition, a large part dedicated to Byron's letters and journals. What is a very positive aspect here is not only the variety of letters, but also the notes and suggestions for further reading which are very helpful.
Then there is of course the criticism. The most interesting part for me was the 19th century criticism which includes letters to Byron and among other writers. There are also reviews in literary journals included and this is very interesting, because it shows the diverse opinions on Byron of his contemporaries.
The 20th century and recent criticism is not quite as obvious to me. There is a number of very interesting articles included for example The sublime self and the inner voice by Peter J. Manning or The Orientalism of Byron's Giaour by Marilyn Butler, but it isn't clear why those articles are chosen. This is my only real critique: that I don't know why they did what thy did.
The register and the bibliography are all right, but I didn't go into them in detail.
Summed up a well made book and worth reading.
Dienstag, 23. Juli 2013
Sophie Scholl - Allen Gewalten zum Trotz
There was a great documentary film on 3sat on Saturday and as it is still available on the website of 3sat I thought I could mention it. It's not as the title suggests about Sophie Scholl only but about the entire Weiße Rose. There is hardly any narration only text and time witnesses and excerpts from the 2001 movie Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage you might know. Anyway, it's very well made and very impressive.
So, check it out if you have time.
Il faut avoir l'esprit dur et le cœur tendre. (Jacques Maritain)
So, check it out if you have time.
Il faut avoir l'esprit dur et le cœur tendre. (Jacques Maritain)
Charles Frazier: Cold Mountain
Well, they made a movie out of it so it can't be that bad. That was NOT my first thought when I began reading Cold Mountain. It was actually on the reading list at the university so I had to read it to pass the exam ;-)
Well, it is a civil war story and you may think like the guy in Sunset Boulevard when he talked about Gone with the Wind who would want a civil war story?
The point is if you don't like civil war stories you're probably gonna love this.
The book is about two lovers who he in the war and she at home suddenly have to survive under dire circumstances. And it's not about heroes. It's about a young man - Inman - who suddenly had to be a soldier and whose main motive for deserting from the army is to get home. And you have a young woman - Ada - who though she is a stranger in the valley - she moved there with her father - has gotten to think of her father's farm as home and doesn't want to leave there when he dies though she knows nothing about farming.
Inman journeys back to Cold Mountain where Ada together with a poor girl named Ruby a few years younger than she is struggles to survive the winter and keep the farm going.
Ada learns in the progress a lot not only about farming, but about independence and survival. And about friendship as well, because Ruby and Ada are as different as they can be, but in the end they are very close and Ruby learns almost as much from Ada as Ada from Ruby.
Inman's journey on the other hand journeys back home and meets all sorts of strange people on the way almost like in a fairy-tale though while they sometimes seem very far off they are strikingly real at the same moment and sometimes you almost forget the danger of Inman being caught over the beautiful way Frazier tells his story.
What makes the book so unforgettable and to one of the most beautiful things I've ever read is the way Frazier describes the landscape. You can see the beautiful valley with the mountain looming over it as clearly as if you had just been there and it's one of the most wonderful things you have ever seen. The landscape and the way it's described bears so much emotion you almost want to cry. The landscape becomes a mirror for both Inman's and Ada's soul and it's overflowing with their sadness as well as their happy memories.
I suppose there was no possibility for a completely happy ending in this book. It would have destroyed the credibility the characters have. But the sad ending is so beautiful up in the mountains were reality and ancient tales and lore finally become one that this has for quite a long time been the first book that had me actually crying.
Well, it is a civil war story and you may think like the guy in Sunset Boulevard when he talked about Gone with the Wind who would want a civil war story?
The point is if you don't like civil war stories you're probably gonna love this.
The book is about two lovers who he in the war and she at home suddenly have to survive under dire circumstances. And it's not about heroes. It's about a young man - Inman - who suddenly had to be a soldier and whose main motive for deserting from the army is to get home. And you have a young woman - Ada - who though she is a stranger in the valley - she moved there with her father - has gotten to think of her father's farm as home and doesn't want to leave there when he dies though she knows nothing about farming.
Inman journeys back to Cold Mountain where Ada together with a poor girl named Ruby a few years younger than she is struggles to survive the winter and keep the farm going.
Ada learns in the progress a lot not only about farming, but about independence and survival. And about friendship as well, because Ruby and Ada are as different as they can be, but in the end they are very close and Ruby learns almost as much from Ada as Ada from Ruby.
Inman's journey on the other hand journeys back home and meets all sorts of strange people on the way almost like in a fairy-tale though while they sometimes seem very far off they are strikingly real at the same moment and sometimes you almost forget the danger of Inman being caught over the beautiful way Frazier tells his story.
What makes the book so unforgettable and to one of the most beautiful things I've ever read is the way Frazier describes the landscape. You can see the beautiful valley with the mountain looming over it as clearly as if you had just been there and it's one of the most wonderful things you have ever seen. The landscape and the way it's described bears so much emotion you almost want to cry. The landscape becomes a mirror for both Inman's and Ada's soul and it's overflowing with their sadness as well as their happy memories.
I suppose there was no possibility for a completely happy ending in this book. It would have destroyed the credibility the characters have. But the sad ending is so beautiful up in the mountains were reality and ancient tales and lore finally become one that this has for quite a long time been the first book that had me actually crying.
Just a poem I wrote (and even published) quite some time ago.
Ach, der Regen fällt wie Tränen
In den Weiher träumend still
Und in schweren Winterträumen
Weht der Wind mich ohne Ziel.
Durch die Felder, leere Fluren,
Birken stehen weiß und tot,
Doch durch Nebelschleier schimmert
Neuen Frühlings Morgenrot.
Immer weiter will ich schweifen,
Stiller Wälder grünes Licht,
Wo der Sonne helles Leuchten
Sich in tausend Farben bricht.
(c) Rebekka Wörner
Kira Nerys - A character Star Trek needed
As I have read and answered to a number of rather "interesting" posts in some star trek boards I feel compelled to write a defense of my probably favourite Star Trek character ever (Spock does have some chances as well).
Star Trek has in its history had many different characters of varied complexity. It has had the philosopher, the fanatic, the scientist, the humanist, the war criminal as well as the capitalist and hundreds more.
But before Kira Nerys Star Trek didn't have a really strong female character. Tasha Yar might have become such a character, but she was there only for one season and was too traumatized and too much in the shadow of other strong characters like Picard, Riker or Worf. Then there is Ro Laren who has certain aspects of that character we are looking for, but Ro Laren though she changes sides in the end is too much impressed by Picard to be a worthy adversary for him in the long run. Most of the other woman characters are simply not tough enough. They surely are not submissive or anything like that, but they have those certain characteristics our society attributes to women: Deanna's sensibility would be the best example, but Uhura starting to cry while all the men are still very much under control works as well.
Now there is Kira Nerys and I liked her from the very first moment I saw her, but that's probably because she reminded me of myself. But if we just analyze the first episode of Deep Space Nine we realize that Sisko won't have that easy a life as Picard and Kirk did. Kira Nerys' first scene shows her shouting at a monitor in the office of the former prefect. This is a very telling scene because we see a woman who is at war not only with the Cardassians but with everyone. Her taking Dukat's office is a physical act of freeing her people at one of whom she shouts at exactly that moment. Kira isn't happy to see Sisko and different from Ro Laren she won't be happy in the second episode either or the third. It takes Kira a long time to trust anyone. Six years later she would be extremely worried that maybe she would have to keep that office she so reluctantly gives up at the beginning.
Kira develops extremely from being a very angry person to being still an angry person with completely different motives. Kira distrusts everyone non-Bajoran (except Odo, but she counts him among the Bajorans) at the beginning simply because she grew up in a world where distrust could keep you alive.
The occupation and the resistance have made her tough, a fighter, but not without emotion. Kira is overflowing with any kind of emotion and they only make her stronger. She is tough, but not incredibly tough. When someone begins to kill all her friends she cries and almost breaks and then she stands up and does something about it.
Kira fights her way through life, but she stops to learn a lot along the way.
She has been a terrorist most of her life, but she has been a terrorist out of necessity, never because killing gave her pleasure. It was the necessity to free her people that made her do what she did. And while she doesn't regret fighting in the resistance this never stops her from regretting some of the things she did. Kira feels guilty, but that guilt never overwhelms her.
Kira starts out having the views of a terrorist: We are the good ones, they are the bad ones. But she learns fast. When Marritza is killed in Duet she realizes that that is wrong. Him being Cardassian is no reason to kill him, because he was a honourable man and innocent of the crimes. And in season 7 we see her leading the Cardassian resistance movement together with Damar and Garak, though she sees the irony and doesn't like it very much at the beginning.
But Kira doesn't change so much herself. She mostly changes her opinion about other things. About Cardassians (the most interesting persons involved here are surely Tekeny Ghemor and Ziyal), about the Federation, about the Provisional Government, about Sisko and she learns to accept them. But she doesn't shape herself to be like them. They have to take her the way she is. She is still a child of the occupation, she is still extremely honest, she still mistrusts a lot of people, she is still very religious, she is still angry, she still argues with Sisko and she still usually shoots first. She still doesn't fit into the world view of the Federation.
And while Dax says to Worf in season 5 "five years ago I didn't think she could be anyone's friend" she makes a number of very good and very unlikely friends.
Star Trek has in its history had many different characters of varied complexity. It has had the philosopher, the fanatic, the scientist, the humanist, the war criminal as well as the capitalist and hundreds more.
But before Kira Nerys Star Trek didn't have a really strong female character. Tasha Yar might have become such a character, but she was there only for one season and was too traumatized and too much in the shadow of other strong characters like Picard, Riker or Worf. Then there is Ro Laren who has certain aspects of that character we are looking for, but Ro Laren though she changes sides in the end is too much impressed by Picard to be a worthy adversary for him in the long run. Most of the other woman characters are simply not tough enough. They surely are not submissive or anything like that, but they have those certain characteristics our society attributes to women: Deanna's sensibility would be the best example, but Uhura starting to cry while all the men are still very much under control works as well.
Now there is Kira Nerys and I liked her from the very first moment I saw her, but that's probably because she reminded me of myself. But if we just analyze the first episode of Deep Space Nine we realize that Sisko won't have that easy a life as Picard and Kirk did. Kira Nerys' first scene shows her shouting at a monitor in the office of the former prefect. This is a very telling scene because we see a woman who is at war not only with the Cardassians but with everyone. Her taking Dukat's office is a physical act of freeing her people at one of whom she shouts at exactly that moment. Kira isn't happy to see Sisko and different from Ro Laren she won't be happy in the second episode either or the third. It takes Kira a long time to trust anyone. Six years later she would be extremely worried that maybe she would have to keep that office she so reluctantly gives up at the beginning.
Kira develops extremely from being a very angry person to being still an angry person with completely different motives. Kira distrusts everyone non-Bajoran (except Odo, but she counts him among the Bajorans) at the beginning simply because she grew up in a world where distrust could keep you alive.
The occupation and the resistance have made her tough, a fighter, but not without emotion. Kira is overflowing with any kind of emotion and they only make her stronger. She is tough, but not incredibly tough. When someone begins to kill all her friends she cries and almost breaks and then she stands up and does something about it.
Kira fights her way through life, but she stops to learn a lot along the way.
She has been a terrorist most of her life, but she has been a terrorist out of necessity, never because killing gave her pleasure. It was the necessity to free her people that made her do what she did. And while she doesn't regret fighting in the resistance this never stops her from regretting some of the things she did. Kira feels guilty, but that guilt never overwhelms her.
Kira starts out having the views of a terrorist: We are the good ones, they are the bad ones. But she learns fast. When Marritza is killed in Duet she realizes that that is wrong. Him being Cardassian is no reason to kill him, because he was a honourable man and innocent of the crimes. And in season 7 we see her leading the Cardassian resistance movement together with Damar and Garak, though she sees the irony and doesn't like it very much at the beginning.
But Kira doesn't change so much herself. She mostly changes her opinion about other things. About Cardassians (the most interesting persons involved here are surely Tekeny Ghemor and Ziyal), about the Federation, about the Provisional Government, about Sisko and she learns to accept them. But she doesn't shape herself to be like them. They have to take her the way she is. She is still a child of the occupation, she is still extremely honest, she still mistrusts a lot of people, she is still very religious, she is still angry, she still argues with Sisko and she still usually shoots first. She still doesn't fit into the world view of the Federation.
And while Dax says to Worf in season 5 "five years ago I didn't think she could be anyone's friend" she makes a number of very good and very unlikely friends.
Just to get started...
I once tried to maintain a website, but it was quite a lot of work and I wasn't able to keep it updated on any regular basis. So I think I will try a blog.
I am going to put up book reviews, my own literary works (whatever they are worth) and whatever else comes to my mind.
The languages will get quite mixed up I'm sure. You can expect to see English, German, French and Spanish on a regular basis, but also some other languages... And by the way, all authors are me, I just don't want to switch accounts all the time... And this will become the backup if I ever get it done: http://throughtimeandspace.blogspot.co.at
I am going to put up book reviews, my own literary works (whatever they are worth) and whatever else comes to my mind.
The languages will get quite mixed up I'm sure. You can expect to see English, German, French and Spanish on a regular basis, but also some other languages... And by the way, all authors are me, I just don't want to switch accounts all the time... And this will become the backup if I ever get it done: http://throughtimeandspace.blogspot.co.at
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