startrekbookreview
Star Trek Book Review #2
Spock’s World by Diane Duane
Publish Date: 1988
Some thots:
Firstly, upon seeing the cover I immediately imagined an MTV Cribs Vulcan edition. Can’t you picture Spock saying “Weldome to my domicile. First I will show you my common area where I eat and work. Next is my sleeping quarters.”
Definitely an iconic work in the Trek literary canon. In short: Vulcan is voting on whether or not to secede from the Federation. Bring on the testimonies from various species about whether or not they should do this. Firstly, I think Duane utilizes the literary medium perfectly here. Two words: Vulcan Filibuster. No way would this work on screen, but here we are blessed with multi page monologues from various characters about Vulcan and whether it should maintain its relationship to the federation (and therefore: humans). McCoy unexpectedly shines in this book and it’s great to see him as an educated advocate— he might throw hella shade @ Spock but damn does the man do his homework when called for! Spock’s World also features several chapters which chronicle the evolution of the planet Vulcan which are at first boring (the planetary formations chapter is brutal unless u imagine it as pillow talk between Spock and Kirk), but build into an incredibly riveting legacy. Think Jack London’s “Before Adam” but transposed onto Vulcan. FASCINATING. These chapters detail Vulcan’s evolution from cavemen to Surak and beyond. Highlight: a chapter detailing Surak’s origin where Duane offers an extremely touching answer for why Vulcan men’s names start with an S- not sure if this originated with this book or not but it made me tear up. It’s a considerably beefier text than standard Trek books, clocking in at almost 400 pages (compared with the average 250-300 of most Trek novels) but the reader’s attention is well earned.
Is it gay? No. :-(
Should you read it? HELL YES.
dduane
It’s not gay?
Oh well. Maybe next time. :)
(…But also, just informationally, re “Considerably beefier text than standard Star Trek books”: That’s because it was the first Star Trek novel to be published in hardcover. When Pocket commissioned me to do this job, my editor said, “Don’t be afraid to put some meat on its bones.” I said, “120K or so of meat?” Got an immediate nod. And therefore, went forth and did that. It’s always nice to be given room to stretch.) :)
percychekov
kerahwaren
leeeeeeeeeegooooooooolaaaaaaaaas
thesilverwolf7
if-the-moon-turns-green
4rch0n
