Review: The Pandora Room

The Pandora Room by Christopher Golden
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

THE PANDORA ROOM is the second in the Ben Walker series, which commenced with the stunning thriller ARARAT. An archaeological excavation in Kurdistan breaks through into a cleverly hidden underground city, possibly the major archaeological discovery of the century. However, there is far more to this site than simply an abandoned civilization covered over by the detritus of millennia. A warning noting a no trespassing order by the King of Asia (Alexander the Great) eventually leads to a room far underground containing a simple jar on an altar. But the inscriptions on the jar and the walls indicate that this may be the legendary Pandora's Jar of antiquity and myth, predating Greek mythology. Of course, there's not just a simple archaeological discovery; and Ben Walker, on a mission for DARPA to recover the jar no matter what, unearths what should have been left concealed for eternity.

I adored ARARAT and consider it a re-reader. I found THE PANDORA ROOM fascinating, but I thought the next-to-last segment (as Walker, Kim, a medical doctor, and some of the archaeologists attempt escape through a newly uncovered underground river tunnel) dragged on longer than necessary. Following that the novel concludes with a potentially apocalyptic outcome, leaving the reader to ask: "Is the Earth safe? Or will the contents of Pandora's Jar wipe out all life on this planet?"



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