Vulcan's Glory - Worst Trek Book Ever?
No Premise - Straight to First Thoughts
This book feels like a collection of short stories. It feels unfinished. There’s so many plot threads that go no where - including the one for which this book is titled. Let me explain. Spock has just joined as second officer to Pike, along with Scotty. To be honest, I don’t think anyone had done anything interesting with Pike’s crew until I watched Discovery. They actually gave him a cool character (and made him a DILF). This book is no exception. But let's start with some plot explanations...
Broken Plot Threads
Let’s outline what plot we have to work with here. Maybe we can workshop this book into something.... readable. As I will say again at the end of this review - I do not think you should read this book, thus, I’m not going to hold back on the spoilers.
Okay Plot 1: Spock goes back to Vulcan (after not seeing poor Amanda for five years!), Sarek is still made at Spock for joining Starfleet, and instructs Spock to go talk to T’Pring, as our homeboy has been avoiding their betrothal. Plot 2: Spock joins the Enterprise. We meet all the known characters from the og pilot as well as giving them some sort of personality. Plot 3: Scott joins the Enterprise, and starts to brew really strong “engine room hooch”, which his roommate sells to people (even though money doesn’t exist on Earth?). Plot 4: The Enterprise goes to this planet which is having issues between groups of nomads, city people, and roving bands of mutants. Pike has been here before, and plans to beam down alone and try to get the groups to work together (Prime Directive who?). Plot 5: The Vulcan’s Glory. A long time ago when the Vulcans were warring between houses, a ship crashed carrying the giant emerald known as the Vulcan’s Glory. Pike thinks that the ship crashed on this planet.
These are the main plots, although there are various others that connect enough to these core plots that I won’t mention them here. Now let's go in depth with each one, maybe workshop it a bit.
Plot 1
So Spock’s on Vulcan, and Sarek literally refuses to speak to him directly, instead using Amanda as a go between. By the end of this book Sarek and Spock never resolve this - and frankly maybe this is canon to TOS, I can’t remember, but it’s definitely not canon in the Discovery era. Also while on Vulcan, Spock meets up with T’Pring, who is having an affair but still wants to marry Spock for money?? All this author does is make T’Pring seem like the worst. I will stick up for my girl though because everyone writes her with an air of sexism, and she deserves better. This sets up “Amok Time” I guess, but it doesn’t have any affects on this novel so it feels entirely pointless. I would take this out of the novel, readers should be familiar enough with his marriage stakes that Spock's later love affair (spoiler) is crazy enough. Moving on...
Plot 2
This encompasses not only the authors attempt to broaden Pike-era characters but also introduce a lame lover for Spock. This lover is a Vulcan onboard the Enterprise named T'Pris. Not that I hate T’Pris herself, she’s a girl boss, but it’s just weird? His affair helps to elevate stakes throughout the Vulcan's Glory plot line, but I think this effect could be achieved through friendship, or the fact that she is also a Vulcan. Spock just becomes overcome with her in a way that doesn’t make sense to me. First off I thought ponfarr was the only reason Vulcans would have sex? But Spock has hand/mind meld sex with her anyways. I would take this relationship out. This is besides the point, but Spock is OOC this entire book, they made him way too straight...
Plot 3
So Scott is obviously not chief engineer yet, and his plot consists of him running this engine room alcohol scheme (which they always call “hooch” which I hate). So at first everyone is like wow this stuff is great, and even Number One and the doctor have some. It doesn’t seem like there’s a problem, because literally no one cares about it. Like it's a group secret that it is being made and distributed. This running thing of Scott making it and his roommate selling it continues for a majority of the book with absolutely no substance until rather stupidly it’s revealed that the warp core is like sending some spark into it and making people really drunk. Which eventually the doctor notices and Number One puts an end to it. Scott gets is told to stop making it, and that’s it. It has no relevance or impact on the story. Scott doesn’t even meet Spock once. This plot line has absolutely no bearing on the Vulcan's Glory, which in my opinion is the most central plot (as it should be! it's the damn name of the novel). As much as I love Scotty, either take him out of this book or let his interact with Spock in some way. There's already so much happening in this book, Scotty does not need to be shoved in.
Plot 4
So I don't remember the name of the planet that Pike beams down on, and frankly, I don't care. Basically Pike is returning here to finish what he started a while ago, and try to get the nomads and city people to start trading. Why this is important to Starfleet I don't know. Pike is like roleplaying this cool nomad guy who mysteriously rolls into camp sometimes and then like manipulates the chief into trading with the cities. Then we get separate POVs of a Romeo and Juliet nomad x city girl moment, and then Pike has to figure out where these two lovers ran off to. It's a whole big debacle about who ran away with who, and then someone figures out that these mutants actually kidnapped them. The mutants live in the mountains and anyone who goes to the mountains never comes back, so Pike of course volunteers to go look for the kids, and beams down aliens from the Enterprise to act like mutants who are loyal to Pike. Long story short, they find the kids, and it turns out the mutants are actually cool guys. Like they aren't bloodthirsty and are way more civilized than everybody else on the planet. Everyone who never came back just figured that their village was a better place to live then anywhere else. Another long story short, Pike unites all three groups and blah blah blah. Now that spark notes version was boring enough, imagine reading almost 300 pages of that. It is absolutely uninteresting, and accomplishes nothing. I think it might have been meant to add some dimension to the character of Pike, but it really doesn't. He's just a generic manly man, who longs for this girl who dumped him back on Earth. I don't want to say that I'd cut this whole part out, but I would have incorporated this plot into the Vulcan's Glory one more. In theory the mutants are the descendants of the Vulcan's who crash-landed on the planet with the Glory, so I would have done something where Pike had to gain the trust of the mutants to get to the Glory. But as you will see, it is not quite that difficult...
Plot 5
Finally, the Vulcan's Glory. So excited! I hope it's the most beautiful gem anywhere! I can't wait to see what they'll do with it - wait, they found it already? Yes. In the very beginning of the book, they beam down and immediately find the damn stone. No questions. No searching. Don't know how Vulcan didn't find it before. So now that we have the stone, now what? A murder-mystery of course! So this wack geologist really wants to study the Glory, but because it is so important to Vulcan Pike won't let him. He is super mad, and forges this report to trick the guard into letting him in to see it. He is then MURDERED by a special Vulcan murder move. AND the Glory has disappeared. All the Vulcan crew members are suspects.... except Spock and T'Pris. Which is totally stupid, and I forget why they are excused, but I think it has something to do with they couldn't have done it because they helped find it. Spoiler - T'Pris is ALSO murdered, but the catch is all the Vulcans are in the brig when it happens. But of course it can't be Spock because Number One picks up on some tension between them. The whole situation is so contrived, and the murderer is totally unpredictable, and not just because they keep switching the story (at one point it's 'only a Vulcan could do this' next it's 'well maybe a really strong human'). I think if the author was really stuck on a murder-mystery they could have at least let Spock be a suspect. It would have raised the stakes way more and made it way more interesting.
Final Thoughts
I really struggled getting through this book. Usually I find Trek books to be quick and engaging reads, but this one dragged on and onnnnn. I highly recommend NOT reading this book. If you want a taste of Pike, and to be fair I haven't read any other Pike-centric books, I would look for a different one. Or, read the Disco Pike/Spock comic - I think it's called Homecoming. Overall, this book really fell flat :l.
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