It’s really hard to talk about this book in a professional manner with things like proper grammar and punctuation because all I really want to do is this:
But I need to calm myself. Though, I’m not really sure how to do that when the last twenty pages or so are almost completely Elim Garak.
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*ELIM GARAK FAN GIRL FLAIL*
Okay. It’s fine. I’m fine. Let’s do this.
So…
The Never-Ending Sacrifice follows that really annoying boy we meet in the episodeCardassians, which doesn’t really bode well for the book, no matter how beautiful the cover art is. I mean, that last thing anyone really wants to do is follow one of the whiniest characters of the second season around on a planet doomed by civil war, famine, and then genocide. It just sounds like the whinging is going to be multiplied threefold.
But then again, people do read Twilight… which is fully of nothing but whiny people…
What you sort of expect to see when consider this concept is Rugal moping around, slamming doors, and announcing how much he hates his dad.
But McCormack did the most amazing thing. She almost completely ignored how angsty and teenagery he was in the episode Cardassians and made him a throughly likable character in the course of even just a few chapters. And she did it beautifully, because I’m not really sure how she did it and still managed to keep him in character. It turns out, when Rugal isn’t being in the process of being ripped away from the only parents he knows and given to the one man he sees as the absolute abandoner, he’s really an intelligent boy who is very aware of concepts of identity and social justice. The story then, instead, becomes a journey of self-discovery for a boy who isn’t Bajoran, and isn’t Cardassian and forced to survive in world that absolutely relies on those distinctions. You put in a lot of political intrigue, war, and spies and what you have is a damn fine novel.
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*POLITICS FAN GIRL FLAIL*
Ahem. Excuse me.
Let’s face it, Star Trek, whether it wants to be or not, is a bit racist against its fictional species, and the Cardassians are almost universally painted as lying bastards who rape everything in the name of the Union. Which is all fine and good, except we know that’s not the case in real life, let alone Star Trek. It never is. The novel, in combination with
A Stitch in Time (
an EXCELLENT BOOK), starts to let you see how a society like that actually functions, that they aren’t all mindless drones, and people like Dukat are really the worst products such a political configuration can offer, but people like Rugal’s exceedingly kind father can still survive and try to follow what they think is right. Even Rugal’s love interest, while sweet, is absolutely Cardassian in her way of thinking and yet he falls in love with her despite being raised (not by his parents, necessarily, but by the Bajoran society) to hate everything a Cardassian is.
It’s beautiful. It’s poignant. And it speaks to reality on so many levels, which is exactly what I expect when I read a good science fiction novel.
I’d like to think that this book can be read without knowledge of Star Trek, or Deep Space Nine, but it’s hard to say that since I know the universe so well. Of course I think the whole thing makes sense! I’ve seen the series a million times! But given the title is reference to a fictional novel in the series, it’s hard to say if that’s true. Honestly, divorced from the context of the series, the title The Never-Ending Sacrifice makes the whole story sound a bit too melodramatic. Well, yes, there is drama in the book, it is never overly melo.
However, take this conversation in mind:
GARAK: I can’t believe that I’m having lunch with a man who thinks The Never-Ending Sacrifice is dull.
BASHIR: I just thought the story got a little redundant after a while. I mean the author’s supposed to be chronicling seven generations of a single family, but he tells the same story over and over again. All of his characters lead selfless lives of duty to the state, grow old and die. Then the next generation comes along and does it all over again.
GARAK: But that’s exactly the point, Doctor. The repetitive epic is the most elegant form of Cardassian literature, and The Never-Ending Sacrifice is it’s greatest achievement.
BASHIR: None of his characters ever really come alive, and there’s more to life than duty to the state.
GARAK: A Federation viewpoint if ever I heard one.
and suddenly, there is a hint of delicious irony to the whole affair. Rugal tries to read The Never-Ending Sacrifice numerous times throughout the novel, but finds himself put off by the prose and the philosophy. And yet, what he doesn’t realize is that he’s living the tale himself. The pains of each generation are handed on to the next, and Rugal comes to grips with just how hard it is to break the cycle and still stay loyal to one’s self.
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*FUCKING AWESOME BOOK FAN GIRL FLAIL*
To summarize:
READ THIS BOOK.
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