TP: Raise the Dawn by DRGIII Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Sho]

^ Thanks rfmcdpei. Well, that just spoilered me majorly of course (which I asked for), but somehow I also feel relief; somehow it will be easier to read knowing it going in.

[rfmcdpei]

E-DUB wrote:

---

(As for Sela, I always wanted to see her find out that her origin wasn't quite what she thought. IE: That Tasha was impregnated involuntarily specifically to produce a Romulan-Human hybrid, sort of Romulus's answer to Spock. No that doesn't happen in the book and I'm only mentioning it because now it won't.)

In a very real sense, Sela is Spock's Romulan counterpart: of mixed ancestry, born to a prominent Vulcanoid male and a female human of no standing within the Vulcanoid society where they were raised, as adults they both were exceptionally talented individuals capable of achieving things on a galactic scale. Sela arguably surpassed Spock in this, becoming an actor for Romulan galactic interests in her 30s.

(I've argued here that the plot in "Reunification" for the invasion of Vulcan actually makes sense if you assume--as has been established in the novels--that there's some pro-Romulan sentiment on Vulcan. That planet's High Command had been sockpuppeted by the Romulans in the 22nd century, after all, and an arrogant Romulan elite might well believe that Vulcans wanted to be reunited.)

The critical problem for Sela, sadly, was that her society was much more repressive than Spock's. Spock's mother was able to find her way on Vulcan as a free individual; Sela's mother was a general's chattel, executed for trying to escape with her child. Romulan racism is certainly orders of magnitude more severe than anything on present-day Vulcan; Sela did well to achieve everything that she did.

Sela's life was distorted by these hatreds, alas, inculcating a toxic self-hatred that expressed itself in repeated attacks against the Federation. Her life was ultimately ended at the pinnacle of her achievements by this hatred, when as Chairwoman of the Tal Shi'ar she authorized--against the Praetor's express wishes--attacks on the Federation. She ended up taking her life rather than be extradited to the Federation. Sela could never step away from being the young girl whose scream in the night led to her mother's execution.

[rfmcdpei]

Halliwell wrote:

---

Really? WTF? First Captain Janeway

Um, use spoiler quotes.

In any case, what happened isn't as described in the above comment, not nearly.

[CaptainDonovin]

Only 35 min until it arrives into my kindle, can't wait.

[ToddCam]

It still says available for Pre-Order on Amazon. Is there a specific time it becomes available? 12am CDT?

[Stoek]

It just DL'd to my Kindle.

[JD]

I don't know, based purely on what was said in the spoilers above, I'd actually say that Kira joining The Prophets is a very positive outcome, and given where they were going with the stuff set up in Warpath, and what we've seen in the last few stories with her it seems like a logical end for that arc. I think it's also a great way to tie up (this chapter of?) her story. And if she joined The Prophets like Sisko did, then she could easily return in a later story. As for DS9, while I am disappointed to see it gone, I'm more than willing to wait and see what happens.
EDIT: As for losing a female Captain, we do have Ro now, and Kira was no longer a Captain, so we're pretty much at the same place now in terms of female leaders as we were before these books.

Honestly, hearing about all this actually makes me a lot more excited for the story.
EDIT: I'd been trying to hold off buying more books until I got more of my stuff on my to read list finished (I have 152 books in my "I plan to read" list on Shelfari), but I might have to splurge and get these tomorrow, not knowing exactly what's going on is driving me crazy.

[Halliwell]

rfmcdpei wrote:

---

Um, use spoiler quotes.

In any case, what happened isn't as described in the above comment, not nearly.

Good.

[Patrick O'Brien]

ToddCam wrote:

---

It still says available for Pre-Order on Amazon. Is there a specific time it becomes available? 12am CDT?

I checked online at 12am EDT and it would not download(still said pre-order). I did not get it on my kindle until 5am this morning. Maybe we have to wait until 12am PDT?

[Enterpriserules]

RIP DS9, you will be missed!

I cannot believe this happened!!!

[DigificWriter]

^ Technically,

we didn't lose DS9 the institution; we merely lost one physical incarnation of it.

I can't buy a copy of the book until the 30th at the earliest, but am kind of disappointed by something I spoiled myself on via Memory Beta.

Apparently, Miles O'Brien comes back to oversee the construction of the new DS9, and ends up taking his former position as Chief Engineer of the station. I have nothing against O'Brien, but feel sort of cheated and disappointed because we just got to see Lt. Cmdr. Chao in the role of CE during and then she ends up being supplanted/replaced in the very next book.

[Enterpriserules]

[QUOTE=DigificWriter;6549787]^ Technically,

we didn't lose DS9 the institution; we merely lost one physical incarnation of it.

We lost the original station and that is sad!

[Enterpriserules]

Damn, Trying not to cry reading this book at work!

[mirsk1]

I was so looking forward to reading this book, and couldn't wait until amazon informed me that the book was ready to download onto my kindle. It downloaded this morning and wouldn't you know it, I immediately got a low battery warning message. The battery was showing only half empty! I was so disappointed and mad - I ignored the message and started reading anyway. Love it so far.

[Enterpriserules]

Loving it so far! I'm on page 136 and have a feeling huge changes are still on the way