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A review by cathepsut
Vulcan's Glory by D.C. Fontana
2.0
In my Star Trek reading hayday I had over 100 ST paperbacks crowding my shelf. I read everything I could lay my hands on. I started losing interest somewhere in the mid to late 90s, so there is a good chance I've read this before. Not sure.
The first 100 pages are mostly set-up, getting all the main characters introduced and in place. The style feels pretty dated. Women are first defined through their looks and they are all beautiful, obviously. Which is a little annoying, especially when written by a female author, but probably a sign of the times.
The story is told in the third person, first by Spock, but switches to various other POVs as well. There isn't a lot of internal monologue or emotional depth. The story flowed fairly well and there was enough suspense to keep me interested. However, I had several issues with it.
The romance is very predictable, with the usual clichee of potential lovers not talking to each other.
The storyline with Chris Pike on the planet, the nomads, townspeople and mutants did not interest me at all. It lacked suspense or any kind of tension.
Then there is the story surrounding Vulcan's Glory, which I found slightly more interesting up to the point of finding it. The murder mystery was very schematic, again no suspense. The explanation of the biological points at the end made no sense. And the culprit and Spock giving long monologues at the end with all the salient points, Poirot style, never made for exciting reading for me.
Both plotlines are not connected at all. It feels a little like reading two seperate short stories, that are loosely held together by a common setting.
Add to that the slightly antiquated feel of the writing style and the simplistic ideas represented here, plus a little vague sexism... This novel did not age well.
The first 100 pages are mostly set-up, getting all the main characters introduced and in place. The style feels pretty dated. Women are first defined through their looks and they are all beautiful, obviously. Which is a little annoying, especially when written by a female author, but probably a sign of the times.
The story is told in the third person, first by Spock, but switches to various other POVs as well. There isn't a lot of internal monologue or emotional depth. The story flowed fairly well and there was enough suspense to keep me interested. However, I had several issues with it.
The romance is very predictable, with the usual clichee of potential lovers not talking to each other.
The storyline with Chris Pike on the planet, the nomads, townspeople and mutants did not interest me at all. It lacked suspense or any kind of tension.
Then there is the story surrounding Vulcan's Glory, which I found slightly more interesting up to the point of finding it. The murder mystery was very schematic, again no suspense. The explanation of the biological points at the end made no sense. And the culprit and Spock giving long monologues at the end with all the salient points, Poirot style, never made for exciting reading for me.
Both plotlines are not connected at all. It feels a little like reading two seperate short stories, that are loosely held together by a common setting.
Add to that the slightly antiquated feel of the writing style and the simplistic ideas represented here, plus a little vague sexism... This novel did not age well.