Spock’s autobiography is more of a letter to Picard

Spock’s autobiography is unlike other autobiographies

I’m a big fan of the autobiographies of the characters on any of the Star Trek series so I couldn’t wait to read and review The Autobiography of Mr. Spock. It was edited by Una Mccormack who also edited The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, which offered detail and insight into Janeway’s time in the Delta Quadrant on Voyager as well as her thought processes behind her decisions and a peek inside her childhood. Overall, it was an interesting, informative book. Mccormack’s latest is much different technically, and it wasn’t at all what I expected.

Though the book does detail Spock’s childhood, it doesn’t delve into much of his time aboard the Enterprise. Instead, McCormack focuses on Spock’s relationships with Michael Burnham,  Sybok, T’Pring, Saavik, and others. And all of it is addressed to Captain Jean-Luc Picard, whom Spock calls Jean-Luc in the book, something I don’t believe he ever did in person. (I could be wrong, but at the time of this writing, I couldn’t recall a time.) I’m still not quite sure why Mccormack chose to go that route instead of making the book simply an autobiography told from Spock’s point of view.

The sections of Spock’s autobiography

Mccormack separated the sections of Spock’s biography by the names of the people who were in Spock’s life at some point. And though it was interesting reading about his interactions with those individuals we don’t know that much about, it was a little disappointing to see a section devoted to “Bones” instead of Dr. McCoy. Throughout the section, Spock referred to the doctor as Bones, something he never did in person. But this could simply be a nitpick on my part.

Tales of Spock’s time with the crew are interspersed with these characters he talks about in the book, but I would have liked to have known more behind-the-scenes of the actual events rather than the characters…except for Spock’s friendship with Kirk. Kirk’s section is barely three pages long, and considering that was the most important friendship in his life, it looks like that would have been much longer.

Still, The Autobiography of Mr. Spock does reveal some interesting tidbits of what the Vulcan might have been thinking, and though it wasn’t one of my favorites, other fans will certainly see it differently.