Cheap The Pandora Principle (Star Trek, Book 49) (Book) (Carolyn Clowes) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Pandora Principle (Star Trek, Book 49)

The Pandora Principle- One of the best Star Trek books
Star Trek-The Pandora Principle, by Carolyn Clowes, is a must-read for all Star Trek fans, especially if you like the character of Lieutenant Saavik. The Pandora Principle gives you a lot of background on Saavik herself, her half- Vulcan, half-Romulan heritage, her relation to Spock, and how she entered Starfleet. I especially like the passages in which Saavik's desire to fly among the stars are described, and in which she, a halfbreed born on a deserted colony, describes the stars as her home. The plot is very good also, realistic and interesting, and it takes a twist you wouldn't expect. I highly recommed this book, one of my favorites, because I really enjoyed reading it (the second and third time also), and you will too.

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One of the best Trek novels; good in general
It's a marvelous, unpretentious little book. It carefully explores Saavik's past (the half-Vulcan half-Romulan from Star Trek II, III, and the beginning of IV) and present character. It is also very funny--laugh-out-loud funny, though not in a corny way (unlike Peter David, Ms. Clowes does not have to drag Q or time-warps into the plot to add most of her humor).

In a novel about my favorite Trek character (Saavik), Ms. Clowes also manages to create another favorite for me: Obo, the Belandrid, a 3-foot-tall amphibian who can fix anything. He's adorable. A friend and I spent about two years chirping, "Eeeasy fix! Vvvery quick!" at each other.

I hope this novel doesn't go out of print. My copy is wearing out.

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Interesting, but with some holes
This is not a novel I felt the need to trade in, but I do think many of the criticisms pointed out by other reviewers are accurate. The backstory given to Saavik, although compelling to read, can be rather difficult to associate with her character as portrayed in the Star Trek movies. It seems more fitting to Valeris of Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, who was also clearly a protege of Spock, and much more of a loose cannon. I could much more believe her a product of a feral childhood than Saavik.

Also, some of the characterizations other than Spock and Saavik can be thin, even annoying, especially in the case of Dr. McCoy. McCoy unfortunately is turned into an irritating screamer that I dreaded to see any time he entered the room. Rather than the intelligent sparring of wits between Spock and McCoy seen in novels by other authors, he simply seems to rant rather unintelligently. McCoy was easily the thinnest character in the entire novel.

The plot does seem cliched--for instance, the pair of novels Demons and Possession seem to deal with such "superweapons", as does the book Thin Air from the Belle Terre miniseries, and sometimes I think the other books handled it better. It's a bit far to annihilate an entire city on Earth with no precedent in the Star Trek canon. Also, the entire description of the alluring, hypnotic power of the boxes, and existence of a large cache of them seems too derivative of Demons.

If you can suspend disbelief and notice of these many flaws, however, the portrayal of the effects of feral childhood, and Spock in the mentor role is actually very compelling. I would probably have awarded this book a 2.5 due to its many flaws--however, since I did keep the book I round up to 3.