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'What do you fear, lady?' he asked. 'A cage,' she said. 'To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.' - Aragorn and Eówyn, "The Return of the King - The Passing of the Grey Company"
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No guts, no glory!
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| Shadowrun: Schattenjäger - Markus Heitz (only available in German) - book, 5 stars 
My mum gave it to me after buying it and *then* finding out it wasn't really what she liked to read.
I, however, was very excited about it, even after only reading the cover. I hadn't read any Shadowrun novels in *ages*, and I just happen to love Markus Heitz' books. So, perfect combination, I thought. But first things first.
The book is actually an anthology of Heitz' first three Shadowrun novels, "TAKC 3000", "Gottes Engel" and "Aeternitas". All three of them take place in the AGS and circle around Seattle originated journalist Severin T. Gospini - or Poolitzer for short - somehow.
Heitz manages very well to build up several plot lines circling several characters (the runner/witch Cauldron, the runner/Ghoul-hunter Jeroquee and Poolitzer happening to be my favorites) that seem to have nothing to do with each other at first but always make sense as a whole in the end. Plus the typical Heitz humor, it makes a great read.
Heitz also manages to connect typical Shadowrun spirit with typical German quirks (I just *loved* the food fight between Jena and Erfurt magic students, because... that's just *so* Thuringia), and for that alone he deserves at least 3 stars ;)
The only thing the book lacked was a Shadowrun glossary for everyone who isn't a passionated player/reader. Otherwise, a great summer vacation read as well. I'm impatiently waiting for the second anthology now :)
| | | 11:17 pm - email it |
| Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon (German edition) - book, 4 stars 
Just another Gabaldon-book. Once you pop, you never stop.
In this one, Claire and Jamie - in "Voyager" Claire managed to go back in time and find Jamie after 20 years of separation) - finally make it to North America and build up a house and a future for themselves. However, Claire's daughter Brianna gets a little too curious about her biological father Jamie and decides to go to the past as well when she finds a note about the presumes death of Claire and Jamie. And then there's still historian Roger Wakefield who's madly in love with Brianna.
In short: It surely has the "ZOMG, I need to know what happens next!"-drive all the Gabaldon-books before had. It's amusing and exciting and horrifying and all the other things.
However, there are still some several things happening that are just a little... "too much", if you get my meaning. And the book would have been even better if Miss Gabaldon would have found a way to counter the sometimes really confusing abrupt perspective changes.
But, all in all, a good read. If you want a really catching book for your summer vacation, this surely is very recommendable.
| | | 10:43 pm - email it |
| Hoffentlich schreibst du recht bald. Sophie Scholl und Fritz Hartnagel. Eine Freundschaft 1937 - 1943 - Hermann Vinke (only available in German) - book, 4 stars 
Moving. But still a little... inaccessible.
But first things first.
Sophie Scholl is one of the most prominent figures in the so-called German Widerstand (resistance) during World War II. She was part of a student resistance group at the university of Munich called the "White Rose". Sophie was a very intelligent young woman who stood for what she believed in, no matter what. And she was also a young woman who fell in love, who had doubts, who was scared.
With this book, the historian Hermann Vinke (obviously an expert on the field of Sophie Scholl and the "White Rose") tried to illuminate a more private side of a nearly mythological figure of German history and make her story palpaple for young readers.
Fro that he chose the correspondence between Sophie and her very close friend Fritz Hartnagel, along with a talk between him and Hartnagel, and several conversation with Hartnagel's wife (and Sophie's sister) Elizabeth. Vinke draws the picture of Sophie's and Fritz's partially very complicated relationship, from their first meeting in 1937 to Sophie's arrestment and execution in 1943.
It was interesting to see a very private side of Sophie Scholl, as well as her friend Fritz Hartnagel. Along with their relationship, both of them develop. Sophie is only a school student when they meet, and Fritz is about to become an officer in the German Wehrmacht (Army). While Sophie develops into a very decisive and radically democratic young woman, Fritz slowly changes from an enthusiastic officer who even partially supports the Nazi regimen to a battle-hardened and disillusioned veteran (after 1945, he becomes a prominent member of the German peace movement) who only stays in his profession so that he can take care of his subordinates.
All in all, Vinke does a very good job of analyzing the friendship - and later love - between the two of them, but often enough it feels like he's doing it from an oddly distanced and somehow cold point of view. Often enough, he stays with the clinical viewpoint of a historian, which would be absolutely right if this was a strictly scientific work. It is, however a Young Readers Book, and as that it's missing a certain... closeness to its protagonists. There are places where it shines through how much Vinke sympathizes with Sophie and Fritz, and for a Young Readers Book, I would have wished for more of them.
As it is, though, it's still a very moving piece of work, but it takes an experienced reader, because most of it has to be discovered by reading between the lines. It's surely recommendable, but I'm not sure, if it's already recommendable for readers under age 16.
| | | 1:08 am - email it |
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