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.
So last time we finally got to hang with the actual cast of this portion of the franchise and set up yet another problem. One of the previous not-a-plague-or-theme-related problems is coming up as we return to Korsal and Kevin. They were up a mountain last we saw.
I don’t remember having a problem with the subplot count as a kid, and we have quite a few:
- the plague that’s the central conflict
- the potential impact on the IDIC perspective that serves as the theme of the character conflict
- the radical activist types that are tied to it
All that I’m okay with, but we also have:
- Kevin getting into Starfleet as the first half-Klingon
- the generator damage possibly causing power issues
- Kevin and Korsal stuck on the mountain
- an Orion considering turning the plague into a bioweapon for money
- one of the aforementioned activists with a history of the Vulcan version of stalking going after a new target
Admittedly, some of my annoyance now is due to what I’ve gone through recently with Watchmen and the Op-Center novels: too many subplots and character moments that don’t really tie into the main story. It’s the same reasons I never got into soap operas. The one time I saw an interesting story as a kid, because my mom was really into her soaps, they kept moving away from the villain trying to flash freeze the city in a spy story for things I didn’t care about. Again, I enjoyed this book enough to eventually grab the novel it spun off of, but now I kind of want to spend more time with the regular characters than all these expanded characters that have been the focus so far. We still aren’t quite at the halfway mark so maybe we’ll get the regulars more of a presence, but it’s not happening this chapter. We have a different mountain to climb, and this one’s literal.
The previous chapter had quite a bit to talk about. This one really doesn’t have much to summarize. Korsal is injured, one of his ribs according to him. Kevin has lost his glasses, so even if the snow wasn’t so heavy he wouldn’t be able to make it down the mountain so easily. The hoverer they came in is later found out of reach, so they can’t even get their medkit and cold weather supplies. All they can do is hold on. As Kevin tries to build a fire and construct a lean-to, he gets his father to talk about life as a Klingon and his own history to keep the cold from claiming him. That plan might have backfired as we end the chapter with Korsal in a memory, and in his condition he may be heading to Sto-vo-kor, if scientists who don’t usually fight are allowed there. I wonder where Klingon eggheads go? He isn’t headed to Klingon hell.
While this doesn’t do much for the plot, we do get some insight into Korsal’s history, his brother being a good big brother, Kevin’s own big brother status, as well as seeing that Kevin’s survival instincts are quite good. While he wants to enter Starfleet, early Klingon training is serving him well. This is the chapter’s strength, and I can’t really fault it. For all my complaining earlier, this doesn’t suffer the same issue as the Op-Center novels because it doesn’t feel like it takes time away from the main story for anything unnecessary. We’re learning about Korsal’s history and Kevin’s skills, and both may be important to the character drama coming. Plus the book so far as done a good job with the plot that it can take time for these character moments.
I still wish the Enterprise crew didn’t feel like extras but we’re still a few pages away from the half-way mark. The book is 44 chapters in total and we just finished 16. Where Op-Center’s unnecessary diversions meant stopping the plot for things we don’t care about, and Watchmen feels like one of those aforementioned soap operas where I am right now (having recently finished issue #6 in that review series), this has the time for minor character development. It’s setting up Kevin’s backstory as a half-Klingon/half-human with an Orion stepmother, which will play into the racial diversity that the plague threatens along with lives. And it does so through his father’s own history, unusual for a Klingon but still growing up as a proper Klingon otherwise. Korsal’s history with his brother also connects to Kevin’s own brother, though we’ll see how much that matters as we go on.
So I’m still enjoying the novel, but I’m glad to see the next chapter gets us back to what’s happening on the Enterprise. How that factors into everything we’ll find out in the next chapter.
