A decent book but a bit of a disappointment
Vulcan's Glory wasn't a bad book, but I was expecting more from a story about this time period. Fontana had an excellent opportunity to expand upon the history of Christopher Pike, but she didn't. James Kirk could have been captaining the Enterprise and the story would have been exactly the same. The Character of Number One was fleshed out somewhat, but that was about it. Fontana had an opportunity to add to what we know about Star Trek in this time period, but instead she gave us a story that could have easily happened during Kirk's first five year mission. The story line with Scotty was useless and had nothing to do with the plot, it was almost as if the editors told her that she needed another familiar character after the book was written and she just threw those pages in. And the murder mystery that was happening on the Enterprise while Pike was down on the planet was ill conceived. In a proper mystery clues are supposed to be planted within the story that would allow the reader to try to figure the murder out along with the characters in the book. Not so here. All of the suspects were cleared, and Fontana simply gave us the murderer at the end. It was as if she changed her mind at the last minute who she wanted the murderer to be and couldn't be bothered to go back into her manuscript to establish credibility (or a stronger motive).

I would love to see more books written in this time period, but only if they give us something unique in Christopher Pike. If you are going to portray the character as identical to James Kirk, then call him James Kirk.

Another concept behind this book is to explore the "hidden" emotional lives of Vulcans. This concept is handled much less well than the background concept; those of us well-versed in the lore of Star Trek know that it is a mistake to believe that Vulcans have no emotions, and we've certainly seen Spock's emotional side before. But Vulcans in general, and Spock in particular, are FAR more circumspect about acknowledging those emotions openly than they are shown to be in this book. Disappointing, because D.C. Fontana ought to know better; she wrote for the original series, including the episode "Journey To Babel", in which she showed a much better grasp of the way Vulcans display (or fail to display) their emotions.

The peeks into the respective personalities of Captain Pike, Number One, and Doctor Boyce was nicely handled, though. I certainly wouldn't mind seeing more books from this time period.

Review this book