7/13/2023 0 Comments Pandora wild originsI read it in a lot of 10 page chunks-maybe that's the cause of my failure to grasp all the details. I liked how the author tied up a lot of the loose ends, but I didn't understand everything. *I eagerly turned the pages-but I have to admit, I didn't quite follow the story. *I liked the side characters-especially Obo. *There's a quarantine! There's nothing like reading a book during a coronavirus quarantine when (some of) the characters are also experiencing quarantine. *Saavik is a cool character, I love her questions and reading Spock's answers. The second chapter was a let down, because it jumped so far forward in time-it skipped the good stuff. Vulcan's arguing, Spock camping, an old dead planet, the ethics of feral children. If a Star Trek book makes me hear that song-I add half a star. *I heard "The Battle in the Mutara Nebula" song in my head for the last half of the book. Who is Carolyn Clowes? I can't find any information about this author (and I clicked three pages deep on a Google search!). It certainly would have been difficult to follow this novel, which is among the best of the classic Pocket Books series. It also makes me mourn the fact that this is the only novel Clowes ever wrote for the franchise, though I can easily accept the argument that she decided to stop while she was ahead. It’s one of the best imaginings of a Vulcan relationship that I have ever seen in the Star Trek franchise, and it’s one that anyone writing about Vulcans should consult. Clowes’s genius comes in making the parallels between the two – mixed Vulcan parentage, emotional struggles – implicit rather than overt. With it we get to see Spock as a parent, not of some long-ago relationship (such as David Marcus) but of someone he consciously chooses to make part of his family. Yet Saavik and her relationship with her mentor are at the heart of the novel, and it’s one of the most richly rewarding ones to be found in any Star Trek novel. They’re a careful mix of the familiar faces (Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, etc.) and new ones created from Clowes’s fertile imagination. Though the novel is rich in plot, Clowes never loses sight of her characters. As they soon discover, however, the real threat lies not with the warbird, but with the seemingly innocuous cargo it contains – one that threatens to bring about war between the Federation and the Romulans. The discovery leads the Enterprise to bring the warbird to Earth to be studied by Starfleet’s best and brightest. She is just beginning her first year there when the Enterprise encounters a drifting Romulan warbird with a dead crew and a game-changing new secret. And Saavik he takes under his wing, educating her and preparing her for entrance into Starfleet Academy. Though the Vulcan crewmembers are nowhere to be found on Hellguard, their children – products of assault and abuse by Romulan guards – remain behind.Īs a member of the mission, Spock convinces the others to rehabilitate the children and give them the option to join Vulcan society. They are rescued from their miserable conditions by a secret Vulcan mission, one that goes in search of the crews of Vulcan science ships that have disappeared over the years near the Romulan border. It’s a prequel that takes the scant details from the films and uses them to construct an excellent origin story about a Vulcan/Romulan child who is one of a group of near-feral orphans on Hellguard, a dismal planet in Romulan space. Considering how good it is, we are all poorer for the lack of more works from her pen.Ĭlowes’s focus in the novel is Saavik, Spock’s protégé from the second and third Star Trek movies. Recommended for anyone interested in learning of a possible explanation of Saavik or simply into all things Spock.Ĭarolyn Clowes is an author with exactly one book to her credit. There is also a nice mix of new characters included the strange alien "obo" whose existence reminds me a lot of a character from the JJ movies. The Pandora Principle is a very good Star Trek novel, we get an awful lot of background on Saavik and Spock and their relationship which rests at the heart of the novel. The secondary plot involves an attack on Earth which sidelines Kirk leaving the Enterprise commanded by Spock having to deal with immediate consequences as Starfleet goes to a war footing. We learn how as a child she first met Spock and how he took responsibility for her and brought her through the trauma of who and what she is and then through her early years at Starfleet academy. As Star Trek fans we first met Saavik on The Wrath of Khan and she's obviously not quite Vulcan and the novel confirms that she is a Vulcan/Romulan fusion created from a sickening plot by a Romulan faction on the failed colony of Hellguard. Saavik, an enigma to many that know her and in this novel by Carolyn Clowes we see a very legitimate backstory to how she came to exist and her ties to Spock.
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