Date: 27 May 2015 21:27 Title: Chapter 1
This was such a bittersweet read. It is so hard as a parent to teach these important moral lessons to children, and I'm sure doubly so when the child is half-alien to you.
(Actually, every child is half-alien in a way -- I know with my own kids, when they misbehave as I would have, I know just how to parent them, but when they misbehave as my husband once did, I'm at a loss. And we're all human in my house! At least, I'm pretty sure we are.)
I love the depth of setting you put into this tale, with the bits of language and the details about Vulcan culture. I also love that you gave us a peek inside Sarek's head and let us see that his motivation was not entirely about protecting his own reputation, but about sparing his son unnecessary pain in the future. There's an internal warmth here, but it still feels true to the character's strictly logical worldview. I love stories that take a fairly minor canon character and flesh them out (it's what I do myself in my own series), and you've done that beautifully here.
If I have any criticism about this piece, it's that there's a bit of head-hopping here -- I think it would have been more emotionally effective to stick with either Sarek's or Spock's point of view entirely and leave us to guess at the feelings of the other. But that's a really minor complaint -- overall, this was a beautiful piece.
Author's Response: Thank you for your insightful review. Just to explain...this is not a new story. It was written way back in the day when I was fairly new to writing, though not to Star trek. You're right about the head-hopping, though in TOS you do get the point of view of all the significant characters...and I couldn't resist exploring the mind-set of both Sarek and Spock in this piece.