In today’s episode, Captain Spock looks forward to reuniting with an old friend who needs some help at a remote desert outpost. But when their journey into the sands leads them to the same madman they once defeated as teenagers, it’s no mirage. Will Spock ever run out of friends and family we’ve never met? Can Dr. McCoy catch loquacious lightning in a bottle twice? And is Uhura cut out for the hot seat? All this and more in Vulcan’s Forge, or, Yesteryear II: Volcanic Boogaloo.

Vulcan’s Forge
Authors: Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz
Pages: 328 (PB)
Published: August 1997 (HC)
Timeline: One year after Generations (2296, present day); 49 years prior (2247, flashbacks)
Prerequisites: Very little, surprisingly. One could argue it’s sort of not really but kind of a spiritual sequel to “Yesteryear” (TAS 1×02). You should probably know about Kirk dying in Generations and the relationship dynamic between Spock and Sarek a little bit. But really, you could jump into this one fairly green and be fine

In the 1980s, Diane Duane wrote two outstanding Star Trek novels, The Romulan Way and Spock’s World.1I kind of took it for granted that we all think these books are awesome, but a recent comment offers an intriguing counterpoint. There are some places where I disagree with this person and some where I think they may have a point, but overall it makes me think I need to read the book again with some of these things in mind. Both had an identical structure, introduced in the former and perfected in the latter, whereby the story alternated between a present-day conflict and the historical account of a Trek race. Coming at a time when the gaps in Romulan and Vulcan history were ripe for filling, the formula proved incredibly compelling. Of course, repeating the trick too much would invariably have resulted in diminishing returns, and TNG had Klingons, the only other major race that would have warranted the treatment at the time, pretty well in hand, and so by the wayside it fell. But it turned out there was a fresh approach to the idea that remained to be explored.

The key tweak to the Duanian formula executed by Vulcan’s Forge, the first of five Trek novels—all of them about Vulcan culture—by Josepha Sherman & Susan Shwartz, was to narrow the focus of the historical half. Rather than recounting the events of an entire alien society, Sherman & Shwartz tell a more personal tale, of a friendship forged in the heat of the Vulcan desert between Spock and a Terran Jewish boy named David Rabin. The novel’s big hook, and the pivotal moment each of their respective 50-years-apart trials by fire leads up to, is how the events of their journeys in both the past and the present lead Spock to choose a new direction in his life—first to join Starfleet, then to pursue an ambassadorial career track.

In the present day, David Rabin is a captain and the leader of a provisional Federation team sent to help the people of Obsidian, a desert world near the Romulan Neutral Zone even harsher and less forgiving than Vulcan. Obsidian’s sun, Loki, is prone to violent flares that hammer the populace with lethal radiation, but no one seems to want Rabin’s help mitigating their harmful effects. Between the sabotaged supply runs, poisoned wells, and burned-down storehouses, Rabin suspects a more sinister hand at work and reaches out to the folks back home for help. That help soon arrives in the form of his old friend Captain Spock and the Intrepid II.

Back in the past, Sarek warns 17-year-old Spock against being swayed by the rhetoric of his political rival Sered, who believes [checks notes] that Vulcans and Romulans should be reunited as one people. Wait, you mean that thing Spock will try to accomplish when he becomes a diplomat? The very same. The problem is, Sered’s version is a bit more—how to say it?—eugenicky? His goal is the “purify the bloodline”, and whatever charm he might have goes right out the airlock when, at an ancient coming-of-age rite attended by Federation citizens from other worlds, he objects to “half-breeds” participating in and outsiders witnessing such rituals and launches a full-scale assault with his Romulan cohorts. In the ensuing melee, Spock is knocked unconscious after finding himself unable to fire a phaser at Sered when he has a clean shot, and he and David, among others, get captured.

Present-day Spock and Rabin take their best people out into the Obsidian desert to investigate and end up nabbing a spy who calls Spock “the Fiery One” and will only answer to someone called “the Master.” The next day, their Galileo-class shuttle crashes in the mountains in a blinding sandstorm, and everyone barely makes it out before it plummets into oblivion. In the scramble to reach shelter, Romulan captors stealthily make off with Dr. McCoy, who soon finds himself enlisted to help with a medical crisis that can’t even be triaged, much less stopped altogether. While he tries to exploit some dissension in the ranks and Uhura holds the fort up in orbit, the two captains leave their subordinates in the safety of their shelter to find Bones, unaware that the “Master” they’ve been told about is the same man they once outwitted many years ago…

Ever since Leonard Nimoy first adopted the blessing of the Kohanim to use as the “live long and prosper” sign, there’s been something of a kinship between Vulcans and Judaism. It’s a little surprising that a character with a strong Jewish identity hadn’t appeared before now, but also not—after all, you can’t spell “ethnoreligion” without “religion”, and the non-literary arms of the franchise have historically not had much time or use for fitting matters of the soul onto the docket. It’s an identity that fits well into Trek though, especially insofar as it gives anyone looking to remind an audience of the brighter future the franchise touts as a feather in its cap a juicy fastball down the middle to knock out of the park.

What I mean is that it opens a door to show officers of Jewish and Arab descent working together harmoniously, and of course Sherman & Shwartz run right through it. Such a thing must have been as difficult to fathom in the 90s as Japanese, Russian, and Black officers in positions of authority were in the 60s, yet in both cases someone was able to will such a future into existence. Sadly, Middle East relations haven’t gotten much better in the 25 years since Vulcan’s Forge was published. About the only step forward we can really brag about is Chromeo.

It’s clear from the promotional blurbs (which we’ll talk more about later) that there was a lot of hype and expectation behind this book, and with that much build-up, the pressure could have easily threatened to capsize the book. Vulcan’s Forge is excellent and doesn’t succumb to that fate. But the excellence that it achieves is a more understated sort than I’m accustomed to seeing from Trek novels. As much as I enjoy them, the ways in which I find Trek novels good are usually Trek-specific ways. They just don’t push the same buttons for me that a “regular” novel would. That isn’t a knock against them; writing literary fiction and Star Trek are two different skill sets.2As demonstrated many, many times by “hard” sci-fi authors who assumed their talents would transfer cleanly with little or no adjustment. But I think Vulcan’s Forge pulls it off in a way that doesn’t call a lot of attention to itself. Small wonder that its promotional plaudits come from authors I’ve had similar feelings about in the past.

Perhaps their greatest accomplishment here is successfully nailing down the dramatization of the lore. Although I haven’t written any fan media myself, official or otherwise, it would be my guess that dramatizing established lore is an order of magnitude or two tougher than filling the gaps between episodes. It’s a more delicate procedure, and you’re liable to upset people if you get it “wrong”. But they don’t, they strike just the right tone. Of course, fool that I am, I was expecting the tension between Spock and Sarek to culminate in some very un-Vulcan emotional lashing out, but of course that’s not how such things go down. It’s done as it should be. That’s why they wrote the book and not me. They know Vulcans (according to certain blurb writers, anyway).

Spock has had so many friends and relatives we’ve never heard of before magically resurface in his life that it’s hard not to think of it as a running joke. But as long as it’s turning out stories as strong as this and Mind Meld, it’s not a very important quibble. Vulcan’s Forge is a powerful story with earned emotional moments written by talented fans with an obvious love of the source material, and at the end of the day, it’s hard to ask for much more than that.

MVP & LVP

• My MVP in this one is David Rabin, because anyone who can convince Spock to change the entire course of his life on two separate occasions almost fifty years apart is clearly a force to be reckoned with.
• The LVP of Vulcan’s Forge is Junior Lieutenant Shana Albright, one of those insufferable starched shirts who is unable to fathom any justification for even the smallest breach of protocol. Rabin has relaxed uniform regulations to accommodate the sweltering Obsidian heat, yet she still wears her entire uniform like a giant nerd. She’s far from a major presence in the book, but still inflexible enough to be annoying for the short time she is in it.

Stray Bits

• Getting this one in just hours under the wire so that October doesn’t become the first month since I started the site in which I failed to publish a review. Things have been bananas in the ol’ personal life lately, but I never stop thinking about this site and plugging forward with the continuing mission. (Incidentally, the site passed its 5-year anniversary while I’ve been off juggling various other responsibilities. Didn’t want a milestone like that to go unmentioned.)
• Among the advance praise for the novel is a note written by a CompuServe forum user named Mary Taylor. I really like that they included some fan input like that. The Internet was a lot smaller and more humble at that time. You didn’t see it represented a lot in media, and when you did, it was almost always the target of the writers’ ire, with withering contempt for the average user, who was invariably portrayed as an overweight, balding man with a ponytail and an ill-fitting T-shirt.3To be clear, I don’t think they’re entirely off-base about how annoying these types can be and how they regularly miss the point, but still, it always struck me as odd that the writers of these shows never took solace in the fact that creating culture is always more valuable than consuming it, and that the beautiful thing about creating something is that you are in no way obligated to care who thinks what about it. So it’s nice to see that an institution I’ve always admired had a more sanguine outlook toward the people without whose support it wouldn’t be where it is today.
• At least one of these ladies was clearly a huge fan of The Romulan Way. One Romulan officer asks, “This … weakling is the war criminal Makkhoi?”—exactly how his name was rendered in that book. Plus, they lift the filibuster tactic straight from that story, although this time, instead of talking about how to make chili, he goes on at length about famous Kentucky Derby horses, which doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that’s still going on at the turn of the 24th century or that anyone living in that time would give a crap about the history of, but it’s entertaining, so who cares. It’s funny when he starts making up horse names because he can’t remember any more real ones.
• The word “Trekker” sees some rather extensive use in the non-story portions of this book. I do seem to vaguely recall that this was around the time that term was in vogue. “Trekkie” just wasn’t Serious enough anymore, and it was apparently very important to be a Serious Person then. We are back to using “Trekkie” though, right?
• Spock and the others haven’t fully come to terms with Kirk’s death, but it’s not excessively indulgent. At least some books are trying to move on.
• It’s awesome getting to see Uhura in the captain’s chair. Her scenes are a lot of fun.
• “Spock raised an eyebrow to the position his crew called (not to his face, though they never did realize the efficiency of Vulcan hearing) ‘eyebrow on stun.'” Sounds like a look I need to practice for my (hopefully very near-)future classroom. (p. 22)
• “When McCoy had been a boy, he had sneaked off to a revival meeting, one of the last held on Terra, by a man later remanded for treatment for an attempt on the Andorian ambassador’s life.” Now that sounds like one heck of a novel. (p. 115)
• “Uhura made herself sit rigidly still, almost at attention, pretending to review the Intrepid’s weapons specs, which she had called up hours ago, when it finally sunk in that she, Uhura of the United States of Africa, a communications officer, not a fighting captain, might actually have to fight.” It’s just a little throwaway line, but I love that tossed-off “United States of Africa” so much. Another piece of Trek flavor with a nearly bottomless history to imagine. (p. 211)
• [Ke-tarya] was a style of fighting ancient enough to please Sered though still current—fortunately—as an exercise regime among modern Vulcans; Spock had studied it as a boy, and occasionally still practiced it as an adult.” I was all primed to nail this part to the wall for using regime when they should have used regimen, thinking the former exclusively meant a system of government (especially, connotatively, a more rigid or dictatorial one) and the latter referred to a scheduled plan. But something told me I had better look it up first before I got all high and mighty about it, and sure enough, it turns out they’re practically interchangeable. It struck me because not long before picking up Vulcan’s Forge, I’d been hit with a random memory of reading about regime/regimen in the old It Pays to Increase Your Word Power column in Reader’s Digest, which my grandmother always passed along to me when she was done with it.4Considering some of my tastes when I was a kid, I might well have been better qualified for AARP membership then than I am now. I remember reading about it and thinking, Those words mean completely different things. How often do people really mix them up? Then I saw it in the book and was like, Well, there you have it, I guess. Despite being grateful for the updated knowledge, “exercise regime” still doesn’t look right to me, and it doesn’t seem like best practice to swap them around willy-nilly, so I’m going to keep them separate in my own usage and try not to do an Old Man Yells at Cloud if I see someone else do it.

Final Assessment

Excellent. Spock’s endless parade of never-before-seen friends and relatives may be a tiresome well to see writers keep going back to, but if it’s producing good stories, then I won’t complain about it. The Jewish component and its kinship with Vulcan culture give the novel a unique flavor, and the return to the alternating past/present structure that made Spock’s World and The Romulan Way such riveting reads is a welcome one. Undergirded by a solid grasp of character motivations and a more literary feel than Trek novels typically achieve, this one is a big winner.

NEXT TIME: Cadet Janeway uses a Lifeline