A review by angrybooklady
Surak's Soul by J.M. Dillard

3.0

While this novel started out rather promising, it was ultimately not the story I wanted. It started out as a simple yet compelling moral conflict: when is it ethical to sacrifice one life form to save another? The fact that this conflict centered around T'Pol made it all the more interesting to me. While she is drawn to somewhat rebellious behavior, T'Pol is very traditional at heart. And for someone as traditional as her, who has been violated by a rogue but trusted member of her own species, forced to relive one of the most traumatic moments of her long life, killed the last of a species in self-defense, and lived among strangers hostile to her culture for a year, it makes sense that she would find solace in the extreme pacifistic code followed by some of her most respected elders.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see her moral dilemma after about the first third of the book. It quickly turned into a book about Archer and his feelings of inadequacy. While I certainly don't have a problem with that story, it wasn't the one that pulled me into this book. Sure, T'Pol took center stage near the end. But by then it was too late to convince me that her narrative hadn't been dropped in favor of a less complex one.