Chapter By Chapter> Star Trek: The Vulcan Academy Murders chapter 23

Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

I’ve been of two minds with this book thus far. On the one hand I thought this would take on more of a crime drama mystery story, even a procedural one more than a mystery for the audience to solve before the characters. Instead the focus has been more on interpersonal drama with characters we aren’t attached to and I wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t read the sequel book, The IDIC Epidemic, first. In our last chapter it was just two character with a private bonding ceremony. I skimmed this one and it still doesn’t appear to be more of the mystery and we’re running out of chapters.

On the other hand, the promise isn’t so much broken as taking its own sweet time. There have been moments of the murder story but it’s been separated by a lot of not murder mystery, as if Lorrah had a short story and used it to make a better reason for the characters to be part of this more longer story about Vulcan society and mating rituals beyond the pon farr. And it is a good story. I’m enjoying reading it. Compare it to a story that did break its promise and wasn’t as interesting in the long run. Prime Directive, another Star Trek book that got the Chapter By Chapter treatment, had nothing to do with the Prime Directive or examining it and seemed more interested in worldbuilding and flashbacks while starting in the middle and making me want them to get on with the details of how the fan took on that maneuver fragrance. In contrast this has been a well told and interesting story that at least remembers what the title is, even if it forgets quite often.

Will the title plot move along or is it more character drama? Let’s check out chapter 23 and find out. 

So I’ve been accepting these long stretches of drama, fleshing out Spock’s history as well as Sarek and Amanda’s, but I don’t know. This chapter felt…unnecessary somehow. The focus is on McCoy learning more about Vulcan, and I don’t know how much of it is canon. Maybe there is a second planet that comes close enough to be like a moon once every whatever cycles. The worldbuilding behind it is interesting, but between the questionable canonicity of the novels and just feeling like a distraction from the main story rather than part of it, I’m not convinced the story needed this one. At best McCoy suggesting Sorel taking some time in Starfleet (again written as two words) because they could use more Vulcan healers thanks to more Vulcan members of starship crews was not a bad one, and neither were Sorel’s reasons for not doing so, at least not yet.

The same holds true when McCoy returns to Sarek’s residence and gets a story about how Sarek and Amanda met, and how waltzing played a part. The idea that an ambassador has to dance one waltz with the hostess was interesting and all, as was Kirk only properly going to sleep when McCoy returned “home” without further news, as well as McCoy not wanting to leave the hospital until he was sure his patients were all at least in stable condition. The only plot movement is that the wakening process for Amanda has begun and it is a slow process, taking days and hours to do because all of her life functions are being done by the stasis field. It’s only mentioned in passing with no acknowledgement that if the killer is going to take a swipe at her like he or she has T’Zan and Remington, this is probably when it’s going to happen.

Again, the plot takes a backseat to character development and worldbuilding, but unlike previous chapters it feels unnecessary as it does nothing for the plot. Nothing to help with the case, nothing to develop characters in any meaningful way since it’s all anecdotes and backstory with no impact on the main story. No, I don’t think it’s my impatience at getting to murder plot because the other chapters that did this either gave us motives for the case or were interesting character moments that needed to happen between the characters and continue their character arcs. This chapter didn’t really do that with any meaningful information and canon rarely comes from the novels. Hopefully the next chapter has the character drama benefit that part of the story or better yet moves the murder story along. We’ll find out next time.