TOS: Unspoken Truth by M. Wander Bonanno Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Yeah, but this I think was disturbing in a good way. Saavik was clearly disturbed by what happened on Genesis; it was one of the main issues of the book. One of the reasons she was so disturbed was because of her relationship with Spock, her mentor, and the son of her adopted parents.

Yeah, well, those books I just ignore.

I really liked the Amanda-Saavik dynamic of this book.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

That is one aspect of Saavik I really identified with, as a matter of fact. When I was a kid, I was extremely literal-minded (still am, somewhat, I'm an Aspie after all). I remember being told that lying is wrong, so I never did it, and I understood lying as "telling something else than the whole truth". I did not know that some truths were best left unspoken, if you will. Got me in trouble when my French teacher got it in her head to ask me if I enjoyed her class and after that if I liked her as a person... I was 9 years old and answered truthfully, after which she complained to my parents, who then tried to explain to me the idea behind diplomacy and polite non-answers!

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Thank you for that! I figured that if I kept at it, all would reveal itself. I am currently in the section where Saavik has accepted her 'father's proposal, and am wondering what will happen next. The order in which this book is written is frustrating at times, but I am hopeful that the confusion will be worth it in the end.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

I used to be very literal minded too. And my grandmother learned not to tell a 7 year old to stop being so smart without the proper context. I didn't kinow there were different meanings to the word smart at the time. heh

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

I just finished it, but do not know what to make of the story.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

You know, the “incestuous” angle never occurred to me.

Spock and Saavik may be legal siblings, but there’s no consanguinity (although I understand there’s a faction of fandom that would have Saavik be the illegitimate offspring of Spock and the Romulan Commander from “The Enterprise Incident” –!). They’re no more “blood relatives” than any natural child and adopted child living in the same household. The relationship is even more attenuated by the fact that Spock hasn’t lived in his parents’ home for decades by the time Saavik comes to them as a child.

Having Amanda and Sarek raise Saavik as their own seemed to me like a natural progression from The Pandora Principle. Clowes as good as hints at it by having Saavik go to live with “a foster family on Vulcan” without saying who that family is.

(It’s possible she intended to, but either someone at Pocket or someone at the studio at the time put the kibosh on it.)

Quite recently, Glenn Greenberg sent me copies of the Star Trek: The Untold Voyages series that he did for Marvel in 1998. Issue #2 essentially picks up Saavik’s story immediately after The Pandora Principle, and – guess what? – has her welcomed into Sarek and Amanda’s home.

(And the reason I got access to Greenberg’s work was because he’d heard about Unspoken Truth and wrote to me, and we discovered we’d had exactly the same thought about who should be in charge of Saavik’s upbringing. So there you are.)

I’ve always had the sense that Star Trek has already been written down somewhere. We writers are just grabbing pieces of it as it flows by in the eddies, currents, backwash…

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

^I'm not certain, but I think Vulcan's Heart made the same assumption about Saavik's upbringing, that it was more by Sarek and Amanda than by Spock. I'm sure I read it somewhere years before I read that comic and Unspoken Truth.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

It's sketchy, but during the wedding ceremony, Saavik addresses Sarek as "Father" and, IIRC, Sarek at least mentally thinks of her as "daughter."

My thought was that it could be interpreted as ritual language ("You're marrying my son, therefore you're part of the family") or as something more personal.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

May I ask if/why you chose to base Captain Miranova so completely on Helen Mirren?

Don't get me wrong, I liked the character, Dame Helen is one of my favorite actresses, and that was probably my favorite part of the novel, but every time I would read "Galina Miranova," I would think of Mirren's real name, "Ilyena Miranov" (as I imagine I was supposed to) and it yanked me out of the story.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Yes, it was intentional, meant as an Easter egg for the rare reader who might know Mirren's birth name. (There's another Easter egg "nested" in the name, so to speak, but I'm not telling. )

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Susan Ivanova perchance?

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Good guess, but I'm not a B5 fan (*ducks*), and it's a little more obscure than that.

You'd have to be a hardcore Mirren fan...

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Or else a user of imdb.com. I was close!

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Check out White Nights.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

I would call Unspoken Truth an average book from MWB and a better-than-average book overall. I loved getting a better look at Saavik's psychology, background, and adopted family. I also loved the worldbuilding involved with the Deemanot. The plot and tone seemed to take a sharp turn when Saavik left the retreat. The spy story was still enjoyable, but it wasn't quite as interesting as what came before. The end sequence explained a little bit too much for my taste. Chapters 18 and 19 could have been essentially removed from the book. I still would have gotten the basic idea of what the V'Shar, Romulans, and Saavik did, and I could have spent more time reflecting about the details of the operations.

This may have little to do with Margaret's work, but both covers for the book are terrible. The blurb on the back gives far too much away, and the front cover image is completely unrecognizable as anything but a generic futuristic city. I don't demand a rendering of Saavik, but the actual cover has no thematic connection or obvious tie-in to the story being told.

 

Re: Star Trek: Unspoken Truth - Discussion (Spoilers)

Unless you're familiar enough with Enterprise to recognize it as a Vulcan skyline.

Still, it wouldn't have hurt to include an image of Saavik. I quite like the one that's on p. 29 of the current issue of Star Trek Magazine, accompanying its piece on The Search for Spock. I don't recall seeing that publicity shot of Saavik/Robin Curtis before. She looks very intense there.

 

Quick question: For the parts of the novel that take place after ST4, how much time passes and does it fit with DC Comics Vol. 2 showing Saavik eventually joining the bridge crew of the Enterprise-A?

Thanks and have fun,
jsplinis

 

By my estimates, they span about one year following (and including) The Voyage Home. Saavik doesn't join the crew in the comics until after Sulu is promoted to the Excelsior, which occurs 3 years before TUC, making it 2290, several years after TVH. So there's no problem making them fit.

 

I finished this today. Really enjoyed most of this. Seems a shame not to have another book featuring Saavik or another book by this author.