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.
Last week we lost both Walter Koenig (Chekov) and Patrick Stewart (Picard), and I’m in the middle of a novel that features neither of them. That also means that of the original cast (not counting the pilot) the two actors remaining really don’t like each other. That’s kind of sad. Hopefully both Shatner and Takei are doing well.
Also last week, Sendet insisted he didn’t beam up anything from the planet, despite being seen there. I’m not convinced, but I don’t know if it’s because I don’t like the jerk (which is still a better opinion that Caroline from the comments has, but she’s not wrong) or if I’m remembering something from my original read, or if the evidence still points to him and currently nobody else.
This week’s chapter is a shorter one, and I kind of skimmed the first page while seeing what to tease for this week’s article, and things are not going to go well. Given that we’re only half way through the novel that should be expected. We didn’t set up things just to have Kirk and crew drop off the T’Vet followers and come back without incident. It wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting just focusing on the medical drama. Although…a medical sci-fi drama could be an interesting exploration. Someone who likes science fiction and medical dramas (please do not use sci-fi to “prove” your preference for medical dramas are superior, or you’re part of the current problem in entertainment and thus will ruin a good idea) needs to get on that. As for us, we need to get back to this.
Three pages and slightly over a paragraph. That’s how long this chapter is, but it set up enough to require the commercial stinger. One of these days I’m going to find a clip of that. Also, chapter 20 takes place twenty hours after chapter 19. Coincidence, or is that why the author chose the number, either to be cute or just inspiration of a timeline?
I have to wonder if Jean Lorrah just has it in for Amanda. The Vulcan Academy Murders kept her at Aunt May levels of near-death for most of the book, and now she’s the first one to get the plague. Or at least the first one we see. Spock wonders if it was proximity to Sendet (glad I’m not the only one unconvinced by his insistence in not being responsible, seeing as Sendet isn’t the logical type Vulcan and would be more willing to outright lie than Spock’s “perspective” based “misleading”), but we’ll get into the specifics of her reaction in a moment. Spock is forced to nerve pinch her as Sarek arrives and they bring her to sickbay, calling for an isolated path and worrying that the crew on the bridge now needs to be isolated. Spock also willingly admits to himself that both he and Sarek are worries about Amanda. Again, the Surak followers control emotions, they don’t lack them.
Spock also lets Kirk know what’s happened and tells Gardens that he needs to be isolated, since the plague tends to get worse after incubating in mixed species like himself. Everything is by the book and professional. I shudder to think what would happen if this showed up on Kurzman Trek.
So how does Amanda show signs of getting sick? We know the plague messes with your emotions. Amanda comes on the bridge going on about Spock not following his father’s wishes about joining the Vulcan Academy and his choice to join Starfleet, and then as Spock tries to get her to sickbay Sarek arrives in the turbolift and she attacks him for disowning their son. On the one had I get it because that’s part of what Amanda does in her appearances since “Journey To Babel”, but on the other hand this doesn’t match up with the previous novel. Lorrah had brought father and son together, coming together over Amanda’s being sick and almost dying even before it was learned she was in worse danger than they thought. (No spoilers if you haven’t read it or my review, and I recommend both.) Amanda knows this already. By the time of the movies nothing more is said of it. So why is this Amanda’s reaction?
The only other person we’ve seen have this reaction to the plague was Therian, but when he first discovered what happens when the virus gets into a mixed race person’s body, his rage was the result of something immediate, something that wouldn’t have caused him to react that way if he wasn’t sick (presumably, anyway), or at least not lash out in violence on Korsal as if he was to blame for having babies with an Earthling. Is Amanda STILL holding that annoyance all this time, and at such a level that she’d go off like this? Before the Enterprise started to leave she knew they fully reconciled, any resentment left after the events of the Babel conference fully dealt with. I know they needed someone to go off, and on a technicality this would have made sense for Amanda’s plague-induced rage, but it doesn’t quite match up with previous events. Woman holds a serious grudge, and I don’t know if I mean Amanda Grayson, wife of Sarek, or Jean Lorrah, author of books. It feels more like an odd choice now, having read The Vulcan Academy Murders before this book this time around, when before I only read The Vulcan Academy Murders well after The IDIC Epidemic. Reading them both in the right order now just makes this choice look off.
Will Amanda survive? Will Lorrah torture her some more? Will Spock…well, we already know he’s not going to die here, but what he’ll go through to make it to his canon death we have yet to see.
