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.
The only article I’m doing this week but only because there are only four chapters left and we have a cliffhanger I can’t discuss on this side of the homepage. Spoilers are only in the article proper. Although if you’ve been following along you know that last time we learned one of our cast is a bad person, but not our murderer. That leaves one suspect, and I called it! Whether it was a subconscious memory from last time or not I can’t really admit to. Point is, the clues were there and I was right! That’s rare for me and mysteries. No, I don’t remember if I got it right the first read, but this isn’t a detective story. The murders have just been a backdrop for the story Jean Lorrah really wanted to tell, and that’s been my sticking point with this book, how poorly the murder plot was integrated into the story she wanted to tell and should have stuck with. It could have worked as a Star Trek story on its own.
At any rate, we should probably check in with Kirk. He’s the cliffhanger I was taking about. We know he lives because he kind of has to for the timeline, and he’s one of the main characters. The question is HOW does he survive? Let’s see if we learn the answer this week.
We learned that Lorrah can do a fight scene. This is the third one in this book. First was a crazed patient at the hospital. The second was a crazed Sendet…I’m seeing a pattern…and the third is Kirk facing two conflicting opponents. The le-matya and the plant we saw earlier are fighting for the right to eat Kirk, but the plant is willing to settle for the le-matya. This is the same species creature that attacked young Spock and his pet sehlat, I-Chaya, in “Yesteryear”. I’m starting to think she really liked that episode. She’s reference it and every piece of Vulcan stories that she could reasonably fit into the story. Luckily she does it well enough and fittingly into the story.
Kirk also shows his intelligence not only in using his survival skills to bandage his swollen leg and rationing the only moisture source he has, which happens to be wine for his date, but in hiding from the le-matya and tricking it into the plant, solving both of his attacker issues. The plant is full and the le-matya is no longer a threat. Lorrah describes a rather violent death for the creature. However, some of the le-matya’s poison gets into his system and he collapses. Did he get out enough to save his life? We’ll have to wait and see.
Unfortunately, Kirk is still not ready to realize that Eleyna did leave him for dead even when he starts to put it together. Kirk is not so foolish. This is a man who puts his duty first. He let a woman he loved die because it was imperative to restore the timeline. He left Carol Marcus to pursue a career in Starfleet. He even lamented in “The Naked Time”, which gets referenced in this chapter, that his duty always came first. I know he doesn’t want to automatically go to “you’re evil”, but you’ve had enough hours to put things together. She clearly left him to die.
Come back next time and see if I’m right.
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