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A Romulan Bird of Prey mysteriously drifts over the neutral zone and into Federation territory. Captain Kirk and the crew of the "Enterprise investigate, only to find the ship dead in space. When Starfleet orders the derelict ship brought to Earth for examination, the "Enterprise returns home with perhaps her greatest prize. But the Bird of Prey carries a dangerous cargo, a deadly force that is soon unleashed in the heart of the Federation. Suddenly, the only hope for the Federation's survival lies buried in the tortured memory of Commander Spock's protege, a cadet named Saavik. Together, Spock and Saavik must return to the nightmare world of Saavik's birth -- a planet called "Hellguard, to discover the secret behind the Romulans' most deadly threat of all...… (more)
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Clowes’s focus in the novel is Saavik, Spock’s protégé from the second and third Star Trek movies. It’s a prequel that takes the scant
As a member of the mission, Spock convinces the others to rehabilitate the children and give them the option to join Vulcan society. And Saavik he takes under his wing, educating her and preparing her for entrance into Starfleet Academy. 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. The discovery leads the Enterprise to bring the warbird to Earth to be studied by Starfleet’s best and brightest. 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.
Though the novel is rich in plot, Clowes never loses sight of her characters. They’re a careful mix of the familiar faces (Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, etc.) and new ones created from Clowes’s fertile imagination. 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. 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. Clowes’s genius comes in making the parallels between the two – mixed Vulcan parentage, emotional struggles – implicit rather than overt. 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. 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 certainly would have been difficult to follow this novel, which is among the best of the classic Pocket Books series.