I knew that I would love this book, since I always loved Trek works that focus on characterization and a portrayal of alien societies and cultures and their complexities, rather than those that are plot-driven or full of technobabble. And, I've always found Cardassians one of the most interesting Trek species and enjoyed the episodes that focused on them - including
Cardassians. I really wanted to see the continuation of that story. And as I expected, I really enjoyed the novel. There's not much to add to what many others have said, so this will be short. My favorite parts were those that portrayed the Cardassian society before the war. Unlike Nerys, it fit with my ideas about Cardassia that I got from the shows, so I had no problem immersing myself into it. (But just like Nerys, I didn't have such a favorable view of Proka Migdal from the episode, although I had no problems accepting the TNES portrayal.) The portrayal of the Detapa Council and their 'revolution' and its aftermath especially rang true, reminding me of some of my own experiences and the real-life examples of 'revolutionary' movements that strive to bring down authocratic regimes, but are in fact very fractured and problematic themselves, with confused ideologies and a mix of idealists and opportunists in their ranks, and I am familiar with the disappointment that comes when it turns out that such a revolution didn't really change the fundamentals of the system, or when the new authorities start exhibiting striking similarities to the old one, or aligning themselves with dubious representatives of the old regime.
The original characters were really good - particularly Geleth; her backstory was great. Kotan, Ziyal and Tekeny were also wonderfully portrayed, as was Garak.
I loved the war part as well and particularly the part on Ithic, and what it showed about the not-so-perfect/evolved Human race and Human sanctimoniousness. I've always been bothered by the "Humans are the nicest and most wonderful race in the galaxy" moments in Trek shows. (The capitalization, BTW, is intentional - in Trek terms, it only makes sense to write "Human" with a capital H, just as we write Cardassian, Bajoran, Romulan etc.)
On a side note, it was cool that the little girl seemed to be of Turkish origin. Sometimes it seems that the vast majority of Human characters we get to see in Trek are from English-speaking countries, with an occasional French, Russian or Japanese person thrown in to show some 'diversity'.
A couple of things that bothered me: the ending felt a little rushed and I was disappointed that Kotan was barely even mentioned. And I didn't like the way that, near the end, the book seemed to be hammering it home that Sisko's decision to send Rugal back to Cardassia was wrong, with Rugal and O'Briens both voicing that opinions, and nobody to voice an opposite one. For one thing, I don't agree, or at least I would say that the issue is far from clear-cut. And I don't like when books (or episodes) try to tell the readers (or viewers) what they are supposed to think, without allowing the opposite view to be heard.
Is there any particular reason Rugal shouldn't behave self-righteously or heartlessly towards Kotan? He was essentially a victim of state kidnapping.
It wasn't Kotan's fault Rugal was 'napped. That was all Dukat's doing.
Kotan was the person who instigated the kidnapping. Rugal's adoption was legal under Bajoran law; he was a Bajoran citizen. And his Bajoran parents were all Rugal remembered or wanted.
I'm not saying that Kotan's a bad guy or that his reasons for doing it weren't understandable. But he was wrong for doing so; he had engaged in an act of kidnapping, and got the Cardassian and Federation states to be his accomplices.
Um, what??!
Kotan was a victim, having his child kidnapped (his only child, to make it worse, and after he had lost his wife) and made to believe that he was dead for years. Please tell me how a parent wanting their child back that was taken from them against their will and through no fault of their own is wrong or... a "state kidnapping"?!
Kotan was setting right what Dukat did.
No, he was kidnapping Rugal from the only family he knew or wanted and sending him off to a world where his son would be raised in tyranny. He had no right to do that; it was fundamentally damaging to Rugal and his developmental health.
While on the other hand, growing up and living surrounded by people who hated his species, constantly being a target of racial abuse, and being taught to hate his own species was really wonderful for his development.
Not to mention that you seem to imply that the very fact that a person has a misfortune to live in an undemocratic state or a flawed and troubled society, is enough to deny them their parental rights. If, say, someone kidnaps their child, and then the child ends up in another country and gets adopted, the biological parents should lose their right only because their country is judged to be not so nice as the other one? Very disturbing.
For a comparison: Yes, I think that the U.S. should have found the father of Elián González an unfit father for wanting to raise his child under the Castro dictatorship.
But deliberately removing a child from a liberal democracy, where he is free, and subjecting him to the abuses of a totalitarian state is an inherently abusive choice.
Oh. You really ARE arguing that.
Yes, I am sure that those people living in all those autocratic societies should just be happy to have their children taken away from them, if only it is possible. They should just exclaim: Please, people from the wonderful liberal democracies, your countries and your way of life are so obviously and undeniably better than ours, please come and taken our children away to a better life!
That is a distinctly Western legal concept that doesn't even exist throughout the entire world today. To try to apply that standard to a conflict between two non-Human, non-Federation worlds is absurd.
But it's not absurd to assume that the entire galaxy and all sorts of alien species would share your political views, and that absolutely everyone in the universe would be happy to live in a liberal democracy - and not just that, everyone in the universe would find living in a democracy much more important than being with their own biological family?
That's a concept that is even not shared by everyone (probably not even the majority of people) throughout the world today.
The most confusing part is how you can reconcile this view with this one:
There's nothing moral about violating another state's sovereignty and engaging in cultural imperialism.
Cultural imperialists often justify their acts by claiming that they are acting in the interests of their victims' natural rights -- yet they inevitably end up violating more of their victims' natural rights than the native government ever did.
Let's remind ourselves again:
But deliberately removing a child from a liberal democracy, where he is free, and subjecting him to the abuses of a totalitarian state is an inherently abusive choice.
Right.
I am, in essence, arguing from a Bajoran legal perspective, without assuming that Bajoran law includes the concept of natural rights.
(...)
If we start talking about natural rights under Bajoran law, we ultimately have nothing more than speculation. But it is an established fact in real life that governments will pick and choose which natural rights it will regard a person as actually possessing, and that as such Kotan would only have whatever standing under Bajoran law the Bajoran government chooses to perceive him as having.
(...)
We don't know that. Remember, we're dealing with Bajoran law, which might be different in any number of ways from real life law.
If you don't know what the Bajoran law is, why do you keep assuming what it is and that there would be a problem from the Bajoran legal point of view?
In other words -- it should have been left up to the Bajorans to decide, and no one else. Not the Federation, and not the Cardassians.
Yes, that's why the Bajoran authorities protested that the decision was left to Sisko, and did their best to question his authority and overrule his decision. Oh wait...
Wanting to raise anyone on a military dictatorship like Cardassia would, from the standpoint of the Bajorans, almost certainly be considered so abusive as to render such a person an unfit parent. The Bajorans have seen how brutal living under a government that's constantly looking for a reason to kill you can be; they would know full well how damaging growing up on Cardassia would be for a child, because all of their children have been subjected to that kind of brutality already.
So, again, you have no idea what the Bajoran law is, and you are arguing that we shouldn't impose our ideas on another culture, but at the same time you assume you know what the Bajoran stance would be?
And by your logic, any child that grew up
under the Occupation was living in abusive circumstances that were damaging to the child's development. Does that mean that all Bajorans living under the Occupation were unfit parents if they wanted to raise their children themselves, rather than, I don't know, say, send them off-world if they only could?
Because it's clearly illegal. The Bajoran court system should have been the institution to decide this issue, not Sisko. It's not Proka's and Kotan's to ask Sisko to rule on.
How do you know? For all we know, the Bajoran laws might regard the Emissary of the Prophets as the utmost authority on such matters. Aren't you just, to paraphrase yourself, applying a distinctly Earth/Terran standard to a non-Human, non-Federation world?
Hmm...on the Jane Austen bit, possibly. But I admit I don't have very fond memories at all of reading Austen, or anything by the Bronte sisters. Damn romance...and then teachers had the nerve to try and tell me the female characters are "liberated."
Nerys, I am shocked to see you lumping Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters all together. I am always annoyed when people mention them in the same sentence - unless it was to state how COMPLETELY AND FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT Emily Bronte's world, mindset and literally style is from that of Jane Austen! It's like implying that
Oz,
DS9 and
Friends are all the same, because, well, they're all TV shows that started in the 1990s! It really seems like an example of people lumping female writers together for no other reason that they were all FEMALE and they happened to live in the same century.
Charlotte Bronte is very, very different from Austen. And then Emily Bronte is on the whole other end of the spectre - as different from Austen as two writers can possibly be! The Bronte sisters share some traits with each other (which are in huge contrast to Austen), but they're hardly one entity! Jane Eyre was a shocking and somewhat revolutionary novel in its day, but seems more conventional and somewhat naive from today's perspective... But
Wuthering Heights is a whole different beast - it was both innovative in its narrative technique, and just too shocking and generally - just too much for the Victorian sensibilities, so much that it was completely misunderstood and under-appreciated in its time. Even Emily's sister Charlotte seemed confused by it and not really too appreciative (judging by her introduction to the second edition).
It feels particularly grating because I've never been a fan of Jane Austen - she does what she does OK, but it's just not my thing, and I can only tolerate her at best... while on the other hand,
Wuthering Heights has always been one of my favorite novels of all time.
Regarding the habit people have of lumping very different female authors just because they are female - I've read a feminist essay that detailed the contemporary criticism of the novel when I was at the university... It is very telling on the gender-based attitudes in society and the literary criticism. When
Wuthering Heights was first published under the alias
Ellis Bell - and every critic assumed that the author was male; the reviews all focused on the novel's brutality and the story of hatred and revenge that spans two generations. One critic even wrote that one has the impression that the author must be a rough, uncouth man, maybe a sailor or something like that (!), and that the novel is really not suitable for ladies from the polite society to read. Then when the next editions came in the following years, after Emily's death, under the name of
Emily Bronte... guess what, all the new reviews were focused on the love story and treating it as a romance novel. Typical, isn't it?
