Born in Caesar Augustus's Rome, Pandora grows up with an adoring father who is a Senator, and is educated freely as many women of her time. She is ten years old when she first meets the then-mortal Marius, an encounter that will irreversibly alter her fate. Now, in a café in 1990s Paris, Pandora meets David Talbot, who is eager for her to finally tell her story in her own words.
Pandora is a fascinating, complex figure in Rice's world of vampires. Although she has been criminally underdeveloped, she has the promise of a truly interesting backstory, one of the vampires from the ancient world. Although her character is, obviously, more expanded here, I had the odd feeling the entire time that she was still acting as little more than window-dressing for the complex backgrounds and characters of the men in this series.
Although she's a young woman in one of the most fascinating times and places on earth, Rice mostly glosses over this section of her life. There's a bit of intrigue when she is a little girl, with discussions of Ovid and some of Augustus's court politics, but it never becomes fully fleshed out. Her affiliation with the temple of Isis is another interesting element, but again, it somehow feels almost... boring, or perfunctory. I love how the legend of Isis ties in with Akasha and Enkil; that's probably my favorite part of this book. But as a whole, it's disjointed, a little awkward and fumbling.
I was also disappointed by how few other characters play a part in Pandora's life. Once again, we are stuck with Marius, who is as creepy and inappropriate in this book as he is in all the others, and for the millionth time, I found myself questioning why Rice was so keen to make him such a central figure. His complicated, rather fiery relationship with Pandora is interesting enough, but their first meeting -- when she is a little girl and he is a man of twenty-five -- is uncomfortable, strange, and leaves a distasteful film over the rest of the novel. I won't go into too much discussion of it here, as I've already mentioned it several times previously in my other reviews, but regardless, it negatively impacted my opinion yet again.
The worst part is that through it all, Pandora still feels underdeveloped. She's intelligent, beautiful, and spirited, but really, that's about it. Her innerworkings come across as simple, especially when compared to others in the series. That being said, the portion of the book that takes place in Antioch paints a wonderfully fascinating picture of that ancient place, and I loved her interactions with Flavius, an Athenian slave who has a beautiful, gentle relationship with her. It wasn't awful by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly isn't the greatest Rice I've ever read.
Recommended if you are interested in Pandora, or some of the lesser known characters in the Chronicles.
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