SPOCK SUFFERS BRAIN DAMAGE

 

Name: Mindshadow

Author: JM Dillard

Publication Date: 1/1986

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #27)

Page Number: 252

Historian’s Note: Sometime between The Counter-clock Incident and The Motion Picture

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Commander Varth Regev                Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Dr. Joseph M'Benga      Dr. Emma Staenz              Lieutenant Ingrit Tomson                                 Lieutenant Giorgo Mikahlis                   Lieutenant Mohamed Jahma              Lieutenant (junior grade) Mohamed al-Baslama                   Lieutenant (junior grade) Reems                Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov              Ensign Lyle               Ensign Rachel Lanz       Admiral James Komack          Ambassador Sarek             Amanda Grayson              Tela’at Stalik              T'Pala        Natahia             Grower Mahali        various unnamed Growers         unnamed Romulan pirate      various unnamed Romulans

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 12, Galileo II NCC-1701/7, unnamed and unclassified small Romulan fighters  

Planets: Aritani and Vulcan

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins with a landing party from the Enterprise visiting the planet Aritani.  The Aritanians are former space faring people who surrendered advanced technology to live a simple life with nature as independent farmers.  So, they are like the Amish except they are from an alien world, and they don’t follow and real strict religion. Unfortunately, they are now under attack from an unknown enemy who is destroying their villages and killing their people.  The Federation has offered to help.  Kirk explains that they are not here to change their way of life.  Although they would love to have them as Federation members Starfleet helps is free regardless. Their leader Natahia is skeptical but desperate.

Trying to help a reluctant people

Spock wants to explore the nearby hills as his tricorder as he tries to find out more about the natural minerals of the planet to see if he can explain why they have been attacked recently.  When he doesn’t return, they go out looking for him.  They find him and it appears that he has fallen down a steep hill and is severely injured with broken bones all down his left side.  Most importantly his injuries to his head have resulted in severe brain damage.  Spock’s status as a Vulcan/Human hybrid complicates potential treatment.  

While Spock is being treated, Aritani is under attack again.  Even though there was a shield up the enemy fighters managed to get through.  They devastate Aritani and the Aritanians.  It is clear from the attackers’ ships that they are Romulans.  What the Romulans want with the planet and how they were able to get through the shield are mysteries.  The incident kills Natahia’s faith that Starfleet is able to protect her people and she requests they leave.  If the Romulans kill all of them so, be it so long as they are living their true lives. 

Romulan attack!!

Back on the Enterprise, a neurologist named Dr. Emma Staenz has been transferred to the ship and given Mr. Spock’s case.  Her prognosis is bleak; his injuries are affecting his logical thinking and have caused the Vulcan mind rules to vanish.  He is now incapable of controlling his telepathic abilities which cause him great pain.  Staenz recommends Kirk to find a temporary replacement for Mr. Spock. 

Kirk and Staenz work out together.  It turns out the good doctor grew up on a high gravity planet giving her great strength for a person her size.  She is more than a match for Captain Kirk, as he ends up hitting the deck more than she does.  There also might be something darker about her because when she is alone with Spock, she tries to force a mind meld and starts a suspicious line of questioning.  She and Dr. McCoy start to see each other romantically. 

Trying to treat Mr. Spock

When the pirates return the Enterprise is able to capture a pirate ship.  The Romulan pirate will not cooperate refusing to answer any questions posed to him.  In Sickbay Spock is getting somewhat better.  His voice comes and goes; he has a hard time remembering people’s names and ranks but does enjoy hearing music.  Spock is aware of his condition and is unhappy about it.

Things are starting to go bad.  First, the Romulan prisoner is murdered, and the murder was made to look like suicide.  Second, it appears that Mr. Spock has attempted suicide himself.  When he awakes Spock claims not to remember but denies trying to commit suicide.  He requests to be sent home to Vulcan and McCoy approves. Staenz objects to sending him away, leading to her first lovers quarrel with McCoy.  She, however, relents.  

Spock has not been himself

Their shuttlecraft, Galileo II, nearly crashes like its famous namesake predecessor, but they get out of it okay.  Their trip is delayed as Scotty has to make repairs.  While they are gone, back on the ship Kirk is injured in a workout routine with Staenz.  While she is treating him, he kisses her and then passes out.  It looks like a love triangle brewing.  The next morning, Lt. Tomson, the Enterprise’s current chief of security, tells the tired Captain that her primary murder suspect is Scotty.  Like the last time Scotty was accused of murder, Kirk doesn’t believe it.  However, he has to let her issue an arrest warrant when he fails to appear on time.

Spock returns home to discover his parents have taken in a young Vulcan woman.  Like Spock, T’Pala is half human/half Vulcan although the reverse with a human father and Vulcan mother.  Her mother died and she was raised by her father she hopes to join the Vulcan diplomatic service and serve under Sarek.  Her father’s status as a criminal makes this difficult. 

Spock being treated at home.

              Spock’s home return is not going well.  He is not relearning the mind rules as expected.  He refuses to help T’Pala with her control even though that is one thing he is currently good at.  Worse, he ends up barking at his mother who was just trying to help.  At one point he thinks about swallowing all of his pills and just ending it. He doesn’t, the next day he makes apologies to all concerned and resumes his lessons. 

Spock has a difficult recovery

Back on the ship, McCoy and Staenz make up and are on romantic terms.  Kirk is hosting a “Journey to Babel”-type of conference to deal with the Aritani situation.  The new first officer, Lieutenant Commander Varth Regev, is very useful when it comes to dealing with the Tellarites.  Scotty returns and is arrested and immediately cleared since he had an airtight alibi.  This conference truly resembles the Babel Conference, when two ambassadors are murdered.  Kirk becomes suspicious of the exact nature of Staenz’s mission.  He discovers that she is actually a Starfleet Intelligence Agent working for Admiral James Komack.  A device is discovered on Regev showing him to be a Romulan spy.

Back at home Spock drops his medication and starts to recover he relearns the mind rules in record time.  His recovery is halted by an attempted assassination on him and his father.  They are saved by T’Pala, who revels she had been working with the Romulans who came to her after she had been rejected for her career and felt isolated from Romulan society.  She had told them of Spock’s recovery and they attacked, but she felt close toward Spock’s family, so she saved them.  Before Spock loses consciousness, he sees her commit suicide with a phaser.

Since T’Pala disintegrated herself, Spock is blamed for the attack on his father which they think is a murder/suicide.  Kirk upon hearing this now wants to head to Vulcan, Staenz tries to talk him out of it, but Kirk is determined to help Spock.  When they get to Vulcan Kirk and McCoy go down to see Spock.  When he wakes up, they explain the situation to him.  Since Sarek is expected to recover Spock is not concerned about the blame as Sarek is expected to recover and will explain everything to the authorities.  Spock knows why he was injured; he had to jump to avoid certain death if the Romulans had caught him.  Spock tells Kirk and McCoy that the drugs Staenz gave him were delaying his recovery and increasing his symptoms not helping him.  It turns out Staenz knew this would happen as she is co-author of a paper that describes its effects on Vulcans.  Staenz is a double agent Romulan spy. Regev was framed. By the time they learn this she has escaped, injuring the chief of security in the process.

Back in disguise 

   The Enterprise heads back to Aritani where Regev managed to locate the Romulan base.  Kirk disguised himself as a Romulan again, and he and Spock beam down to see if they could expose and sabotage the place. While there they run in Staenz again, whose real name is Subcommander Tanirius.  It turns out she is a triple agent and that her true allegiance is not the Romulan Preator or the Federation but rather a reform movement in Romulus that seeks to bring down the tyrannical imperial government. She helps the two of them escape and sets the base up for destruction.  After they get back to the ship the base is destroyed but six fighters escape leaving our mystery lady’s fate up in the air.  McCoy is hopeful that she is okay.  The Aritani accept the Federation’s help and defending their home.   

Additional thoughts: This was one of the best Star Trek books that I had read in a while.  One of the main things I liked about the story was that even though the author invented some interesting characters they didn’t displace the main Star Trek cast from the story.  The story was an exciting traditional Star Trek adventure that took advantage of the book format to give us more depth.

While reading the book I referred to myself the people of Aritani as the “space Amish” since they turned their backs on technology to live like the world never developed past the 19^th century.  I had to question Captain Kirk’s judgement when it came to placing the crew on shore leave on this planet.  They Aritanians barely wanted the Federation’s help do really want to send down multiple landing parties of people whose sole purpose is recreation?

I thought it was creative to have Spock’s status as a Vulcan/human hybrid make it difficult for his injuries to be diagnosed and treated.  The fact that Vulcan brains and human brains function differently makes it hard to plot the proper course of treatment. Do you treat him more as a human or Vulcan?  One might think Vulcan, but Spock’s right-handedness suggests otherwise.   

Scotty accused of murder again.  Poor Mr. Scott, all he tries to do is help, yet people often want to accuse him of killing people. Good thing for him is this time it was much easier to prove that he didn’t do it.

McCoy falls hard for women, doesn’t he?  He only knows them for a short time, and he gets all committed and remains in love with them for quite some time.  He should learn to let go more, like his good buddy Captain Kirk.

A short while

For some time

I found the “Vulcans don’t apologize” to be a bunch of baloney.  We see them apologize all the time.  How else are they going to admit fault and take responsibility for their actions especially if those actions unintentionally caused someone harm.  Also, sometimes people have legitimate excuses for things like tardiness, how would any society function if they were not able to address them.

Lieutenant Commander Varth Regev turned out to be a more interesting character than I originally thought.  I really like the way he handled the Tellarites situation.  It was a neat reveal that it turned out to be a Starfleet intelligence officer the whole time.

 T’Pala was such a sad and tragic case.  The Vulcan/human hybrid with nowhere to turn. It was easy to feel for the poor girl when she told Spock that no Vulcan male wanted to bond with her.  All she wanted to do was fit in and this was precisely what was not allowed.  She had no home anywhere and that led to her being manipulated by the Romulans.  It was easy to understand why Spock and his family felt for her and he continued to cover for her so she could have dignity in death.  It is too bad that Spock didn’t meet her when he was healthy and in control.  She could have been his perfect mate.

 Finally, the Emma Staenz reveal was perfect.  The best twists in a story are ones you don’t see coming yet seem obvious when you look back on it.  Her advanced strength for her size makes more sense when you remember that Vulcan/Romulans have enhanced strength.  I was constantly guessing throughout the book to what side she was truly on, and every time I thought I figured it out the author would pull out some new information that made me realize I was wrong but maybe I was right before, most likely I was wrong there too.  

Should it be canon: I see nothing in this story that should prevent me from being canon in official Star Trek lore.  Given the story is great I love to add it to official Star Trek canon.

Cover Art: We have Spock’s left side profile on the viewer’s right and in front of Spock’s face are Kirk, McCoy, and Emma Saenz. Behind all of them is a mountain range.

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5

 

SPOCK’S MIND SIFTER ADVENTURE

 

Name: Ishmael

Author: Barbara Hambly

Publication Date: 5/1985

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #23)

Page Number: 255

Historian’s Note: In between the last episode of Star Trek season 1: “Operation Annihilate” and the first episode of Star Trek season 2: “Catspaw”

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Lieutenant Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Lieutenant Kevin Riley               Lieutenant Gilden          Dr. Aurelia Steiner               Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Commander Maria Kellogg     Trae       Khin Khlaru        Colonel  Nch'rth                    Jason Bolt                 Jeremy Bolt         Joshua Bolt            Captain Roland Francis Clancey           Biddy Cloom                  Dr. Sarah Gay             Lottie Hatfield                Elizabeth Darrow            Donnelly               Katy Hoyt                 Robin Manderly                    Sheila Meyers          Joshua Norton                Mrs. O'Shaughnessy                     Candy Pruitt             Aaron Stemple            Dulcie Wainright           Elizabeth Stemple              unnamed Klingons          

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 12, IKS Rapache, and IKS Schin'char

Planets: Alpha Eridani III and Earth

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins with the Enterprise being summoned to Starbase 12, to study the nearby Tau Eridani Cloud.  However, the Klingons are also there, and they don’t seem to be there to observe a white dwarf star.  The pair of Klingon ships are a transport and a cruiser and the transport gives off a lot of power.  Spock, with Kirk’s approval, sneaks aboard disguised as a worker from the Starbase there to unload equipment.  When it comes time to rendezvous later, he never arrives, and it appears he is still on the transport.

Klingons making trouble

Any attempt to rescue him is shot when the transport suddenly accelerates to a high warp speed and vanishes into the cloud. All is not lost however because Spock was able to send a cryptic message.  That message is “White dwarf. Khlaru. Tillman's Factor. Guardian" and along with the numbers eighteen, sixty, and seven.

Aaron Stemple

The story moves to 19th century Seattle, Washington.  Long before it was major American city instead it was just a logging town.  Aaron Stemple, a local businessman, finds Spock unconscious and appears to have been tortured.  Stemple is taken back that the land around the injured man is itself undisturbed, as if the stranger appeared out of nowhere.  Upon looking at Spock’s green blood and pointed ears, he realizes an alien from outer space. (Which, I’ll take more about in my Additional thoughts section.)  Stemple realizing the intolerance of his world—US Civil War being only a few years ago—decides not to return Spock to a local doctor.  He takes it upon himself to save the stranger so, he brings back Spock to his isolated cabin at Eagle Head Point.

 

Lottie Hatfield, owner of a local saloon bar, becomes Stemple’s confidant about Spock’s existence.  Stemple shares his concerns about what Spock’s existence means for their planet and humanity itself.   Later Lottie sees two Klingons. She wants to go back and warn Stemple, but the weather kills that plan.

Gets help

Spock wakes up with no memory of who he is, but he knows he is an alien.  He is also very depressed to the point of almost suicide.  Stemple tries to cheer him up and offers him a job as an accountant.

Back in the 23^rd century Kirk is still trying to figure out what happened to his friend and first officer.  He teams up with Commander Maria Kellogg, who is the commanding officer of Starbase 12. Kellogg points to that there is a Klingon historian named Khlaru, currently on this very Starbase. Tillmann's Factor is a mathematical constant to do with acceleration past light-speed, and the Enterprise this year accidentally created at time warp and was sent back to Earth during the 1960s. Maybe the Klingons have used the white dwarf star to create their own time warp. To Kirk, the number 18-6-7 sounds like a date. 

Kirk and crew trying to find Spock

Kellogg has a Vulcan historian Trae on staff.  Trae explains that the Klingons were conquered by the Karsid Empire centuries ago. Karsid strategy was to locate preindustrial societies and offer them economic and other help. This would lead to increasing interference on their part in those societies until they took over completely. The Klingons overthrew the Karsid Empire before founding their own and this is the reason the Karsids were never able to try this on Earth.

 Spock is given the name Ishmael Marx and is introduced into town as Stemple’s nephew.  They visit Lottie’s place where Spock learns about the town’s big situation.  Jason Bolt, who runs a lumber mill with his two brothers, Jeremy and Joshua, had to overcome a shutdown of his operation as his lumberjacks are upset that there is no female population to speak of in Seattle.  In order to save his business, he promises to find at least a hundred single young women willing to come to the frontier town and stay for a full year.  Problem is he doesn’t have the money to afford it.  So, to meet that second desperate situation he makes a literal gamble.  Stemple puts up much of the money not as a loan but as a bet the Bolt brothers will not succeed.  If the Bolt fails to marry off all the women Stemple wins Bridal Veil Mountain, with their logging company at a fraction of the costs. (This is the overall plot of the Here Come the Brides TV show.) 

Spock is more than successful as Stemple’s accountant, and his skills amaze the town.  It appears the memory plagued Vulcan is fitting in very well on 19^th century Earth.  Spock challenges his benefactor to the morality of this bet of his.  He convinces Stemple to offer the Bolt brothers a way out of the bet by just buying him off. The Bolt brothers don’t have the money, so they head to San Francisco to gamble, and Spock comes up with a method for them to gradually win money.  In a few days they were going to be able to get the $50,000 to pay off Stemple.  While this is going on they are attacked in the street, but they manage to fight them off.  They run into a woman named Sarah Gay.  Gay is a doctor but because of prejudice at the time she was not allowed to be one.  Joshua takes a liking to her.  

Spock tries to help the Bolts out

Spock’s system was working but they got greedy and Jason risks everything on poker but loses.  This means they have to leave San Francisco empty handed and the bet between the Bolts and Stemple is still on.

The ladies of the bet!

Kirk, McCoy, Maria Kellogg, and Trae investigate what the Klingons are trying to achieve. They found that the Klingons tried to destroy the relevant records, but was stopped by Khin Khlaru, who wanted to preserve the integrity of the historical record. The records reveal that the Karsids began their attempt to subvert and take over Earth in 1868, but their efforts were stopped by government of the United States. Before they could overcome that resistance, the Klingon rebellions began that brought about the downfall of the Karsid Empire.  The person most responsible for the US Government being able to resist the Karsid Empire, was no other than the United States representative from Washington Territory – Aaron Stemple.  The Klingons are hoping to stop Stemple thus allowing them to conquer the Earth and prevent the Federation from forming.  The Klingon Empire will still come into existence with no Federation to stand in the way of their territorial ambitions.

During the celebration of Jeremy Bolt and Candy Pruitt’s marriage, Jason proposes to Biddy hoping to finally win the bet.  She turns him down, although she was very flattered by the proposal, but she thinks they would not be a good match.  Sarah Gay arrives unexpectedly, having changed her mind about marrying Joshua.

Spock doing his best to fit in.

Stemple then asks Biddy to marry him, and she accepts.  This means Stemple gets the love of this life but loses the bet, this means that everyone is happy with all they have. At this point in the plot this is the perfect time for Klingon assassins from the future to show up. Seeing Klingons restores Spock’s memory and he sees them go after Stemple.  He gives chase but Spock is not in time to prevent the Klingons shooting temple who is badly wounded but not killed. Spock stops the Klingons finishing Aaron off and they leave, convinced that they fatally injured him. 

Stemple gets his girl!

Spock tries to nurse him back to health with blood transfusions enthusiastically donated by the community.  It doesn’t save him only delays the inevitable, Spock is convinced that he failed in his primary objective.  Just when he is about to come to terms with his failure Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy arrive.  They took the Enterprise back to the past via firing the warp drive around a star and here they are.  Stemple is brought back to the ship, and his life is saved.  Spock, restored to his previous self, thanks Stemple for all he had done for him.  Stemple is sent back to his own destiny.

Kirk and McCoy show up to rescue Spock!

In his final evaluation Spock conceded that he believes they have always been living in the altered time-line.  The Klingons, in their attempt to change what had happened, ended up bringing the exact events about. Spock also concludes that his mother and therefore himself are the descendants of Biddy and Aaron Stemple.  Stemple is Amanda Grayson’s middle name.

Spock restored!

Additional thoughts: This was a fun story.  In a way it reminded me of the earlier story “Mind Sifter” that involved Captain Kirk after Klingon torture being sent to Earth’s past with no idea of who was.  This was better.  Spock might not have had his memory, but he was clearly himself.  It also did not take place of an impossible timetable. 

This is not just a Star Trek book; it is crossover with another TV show from the 1960s called Here Comes the Brides.  All the characters that Spock interacts with in the 19^th century are from this series. Now I never even heard of the series before this book, so I did some reading up on it.  Like Star Trek, Brides often would deal with real world issues such as racial discrimination and the importance of tolerance.  The show lasted for two seasons and had over fifty episodes.  I suspect that the show never had a resolution for its characters because the shows main premise: women being brought in for marriage prospects and a bet between Stemple and Jason Bolt is still on going at the start of this story and finally resolved by the end of the book. All the Brides characters are in a good place at the end, with this probably being their last appearance—as unlike Star Trek they didn’t give birth to a franchise—their fans can rest easy knowing how it was all resolved.

Hopefully fans got their resolution

When I was a kid, my sisters, my cousins, and I use to play a game we called “Mix up.” We would all play characters from various franchises and come up with stories on how they could interact together. So, Luke Skywalker could team up with Captain Kirk, the Ghostbusters, and a superhero. This book kind of reminded me of that.

The scene when they were talking about the old Earth Gregorian calendar dating system and since they didn’t use it, they were unaware that BC and AD weren’t used in everyday speech.  I like how Kirk and McCoy used their experience with Edith Keeler to explain that to the base commander.  Although later in the series would make this scene not make sense as the calendar is still used by humans. 

I learned something about math that I didn’t know prior to reading this book.  X²-1=(X-1) *(X+1) I thought that was very cool.  Thank you, Mr. Spock.  

We learned a bit of Klingon history. The Karsid Empire is the Mongol Empire to the Klingons’ Russia.  The Klingons were once the victims of space conquerors until they overthrew them and used their empire to start the foundation of their own interplanetary empire.  Seems this is history that they probably shouldn’t be messing with.

I thought it was funny that the United States Library of Congress is still around despite the unification of Earth Government. 

Although Spock says he thinks they were always in the alternate timeline I have a different opinion.  This reminds me a lot of the first Terminator movie where it was a closed time loop. The attempt to change the past is what caused the very events that you didn’t want to happen to actually happen.  Hence, while the Klingons stop focusing on time travel. 

So, Aaron Stemple, who was played by Star Trek Legend Mark Lenard, turns out to be one of Spock’s human ancestors.  Amazing that Spock, he always has relatives coming out of nowhere.  It was bit of stretch that Stemple was so quick to deduce that Spock was not of this world.  I mean what would even inspire him to believe in life on other planets?  There is nothing about that in the culture of Earth at the time at least that I am aware of.  They do point out that such a world did produce H.G. Wells and his stories so I suppose it could make sense but still seemed that Stemple had formed these beliefs because of plot smarts.  Unless, does anyone who watched this TV show know if Stemple was always going on about aliens trying to invade the Earth?    

Should it be canon: I have no issues with this, I think it would be a great addition to Star Trek canon.

Cover Art: The cover has Spock in 19^th century dress playing chess with a man from that time period.  A beautiful woman looks on standing slightly behind the middle of them.  The cover has a slight deception as in the story Spock grew his hair longer to cover his ears while he was in 1867.

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5

 

SPOCK GOT ZARABETH PREGNANT!

Name: Yesterday’s Son

Author: A.C. Crispin  

Publication Date: 8/1983

Publisher: Pocket Books (Star Trek #11)

Page Number: 189

Historian’s Note:  This story takes place two years after the event s in “All Our Yesterdays” and before the events in “Yesteryear.”  Book 1 in the Yesterday Saga!

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk       Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”       Lieutenant Commander Rex Colfax    Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura            Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov       Ensign Teresa McNair                   Ensign Juan Cordova         Ensign David Steinberg            Admiral James Komack    Commodore Robert Wesley          Dr.  Anna Vargas                     Zarabeth               Zar          T’Pau            Commander Tal    many unnamed Federation Marines, Federation scientists, and Romulan soldiers

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Lexington NCC-1709, Starbase 11,  ChR Glory Quest, numerous unnamed Starfleet and Romulan ships.

Planets: Guardian’s homeworld now called “Gateway,” Vulcan, and Sarpeidon

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins with a young woman; named Ensign Teresa McNair who discovered something while studying archeological images from the destroyed planet Sarpeidon.  It appears to be a cave painting of a Vulcan.  She shows this to Mr. Spock asking if there were any Vulcan expeditions at that time.  Spock calmly tells the Ensign that there are many such historical coincidences such as Pan in Earth legends.

The Enterprise arrives at Starbase 11 for a much needed overhaul.  Spock at this moment requests leave time from Kirk.  Since Spock doesn’t normally request leave like this Kirk immediately knows that Spock has some sort of trouble of a personal nature, and as always Spock feels that his personal problems should be faced by him alone despite the fact that he has friends who would walk through a radiation infected engine room for him and he them.  Kirk then demands on going.  Spock tries to argue otherwise but it is useless if he wants to go on the mission Kirk is going coming along.  Spock tells him that he is convinced he fathered a son with Zarabeth as the Vulcan in the cave paintings dated to that time period.  That Vulcan was also a long haired child so it could not have been him.  With Sarpedion and its time device destroyed Spock wants to use the Guardian of Forever.

Spock's one time girlfriend

Spock contacts T’Pau on Vulcan and explains the situation; with her great authority Spock is able to secure access to the Guardian.  When he returns from the Enterprise to meet up with Kirk they find McCoy now insisting on coming along too.  They try to argue but McCoy points out they need his medical knowledge to help both Zarabeth and her son.  Kirk tries to point out that Spock only has secured permission for two, but Spock actually got it for three because he predicted McCoy’s behavior.  (I love that part.) 

T'Pau can secure access to anything

The three arrive at the Gateway planet and are greeted by Dr. Anna Vargas head of the expedition to explore the planet and the Guardian.  She is excited to meet the discoverers and the only people ever to use the Guardian.  She is amazed they got permission to do so again. They explain they are trying to save a child who is a relative of Mr. Spock, who is trapped in the past. When the three are alone with the Guardian, Spock speaks with it.  He is able to confirm that the Guardian can send them back to Sarpedion of five thousand years past.  Spock gets the Guardian to focus on the lifeform that most resembles Spock’s.  With that they jump through the great donut again. 

Once again using the Guardian

Back in the ice age of Sarpedion, this time at least they are in the summer; McCoy notices how strange the star looks.  He describes it as looking like it could blow at any moment.  The three take comfort in the knowledge that it won’t be destroyed for another five thousand years.  That night they set up a tent and sleep in it.  When they wake up they wonder around and have to dodge some predators.  They find a person has been watching him.  They catch up to this individual and discover that he is the person they have been looking for.  It appears they have miscalculated for they thought they came for a small child but they traveled to a time where Spock’s son is twenty-eight Earth years old.  They explain who they are and the man is very excited to meet his father.  He introduces himself as Zar.  Zar’s mother explained that his father came from a different point in time and space.  When they ask about Zarabeth he explains that his mother was killed in an accident some ten years ago.  He has been alone since. 

Zar takes them back to the cave the Spock and McCoy shared with Zarabeth during their adventure here.  Zar explains his life to the three.  There becomes a tense moment where Spock asks Zar to stop calling him “father” as he doesn’t think it’s right a “stranger” calls him that.  Zar is taken aback but complies.  They let them know they mean to return with him using the Guardian of Forever.  Zar packs his bag and they cremate Zarabeth’s body that Zar kept in a type of cold storage.

 As they return, Dr. Vargas is surprised to see an adult when she was expecting a child.  However, science he lived as a caveman in an ice age, Dr. Vargas now had a number of questions about his life style, all of which Zar happily answered.  They return to the ship and Dr. McCoy gives him a check-up, gives him all the necessary vaccines, and a shave and haircut.  Zar strongly resembles his father but given their closeness in actual age it is decided that he will claim to just be Spock’s relative.  Zar express a desire to use the Guardian to save his mother but Spock basically explains the grandfather paradox to him.  Spock says it’s easier to express in a mathematical formula than with words.  McCoy is uncertain how Spock and Zar’s relationship is going to progress.

Zar looks like a younger version of his father

Zar takes to life on the Enterprise like a fish to water.  Spock creates an educational program for him that he quickly aces.  His intelligence rivals that of his father’s.  Kirk bunks him with two security officers and Zar gains their friendship fast.  He learns of Vulcan culture and can reasonably present as one.  However, Spock is still treating his son more as a responsibility that is his obligation than a person whom he deeply cares about.   Zar confronts Captain Kirk about this and the Captain tells Zar about the circumstances that led to his birth.  He also told Zar that the time device on Sarpeidon had affected Spock so that he was emotionally unstable when he sought comfort in the arms of Zar’s mother.  Zar is disappointed an expresses that Spock views him as some sort of bastard what Vulcans call a “Krenath.”

  Zar goes into delayed teenage rebellion mode.  After finishing one of his lessons he gets himself a meat sandwich from the recreation room and eats in right front of Spock.  McCoy tells Kirk the Spock was very upset by his action.  There is no time to follow up on this because the Romulans have entered the Gateway planet’s solar system.  When they get there Kirk sends down a landing party to protect the scientists from the Romulans and prevent the Romulans from getting their hands on the Guardian.  The Romulans already have land troops and they attack the expedition.  All are killed including two who were bunkmates of Zar.  As they die, Zar feels their deaths.  He gets extreme pain, interrupting a conversation he was having with Ensign McNair about images of relics from his homeworld.  His reaction is similar to Spock’s in “The Immunity Syndrome.”  It takes a while but Zar recovers.  

With the Romulans on the ground and winning, the ship’s senior officers, plus Zar, are all coming up with nightmare scenarios once the Romulans have discovered the time portal.  Zar asked if it how they would know if they haven’t already used it, if history altered he reasoned wouldn’t their reality alter round them.  Lt. Uhura is one who brings the conversation back to reality.  She points out that if the Romulans knew what the Guardian was it would represent a security breach so high up in the Federation that they would have to already know that such a breach exists.  She points out the most likely scenario is the Romulans have noticed starships on regular patrols here and that has peaked their interests in the planet’s potential secrets.

Romulans taking an interest in what the Federation is hiding 

The Enterprise crew discovers that the Romulans on the planet have set up a cloaking device on the ground hiding the Guardian from the sensors.  Kirk decides he might have to destroy the Gateway world to prevent it from falling in the wrong hands.  To avoid this he sends Spock on a mission with Zar, possibly violating regulations since Zar is a civilian.  However Zar’s telepathic hunting abilities that Spock himself doesn’t have particularly the power to broadcast fear into others maybe vital to stopping the Romulans.  While on the mission Spock and Zar get a chance to speak father to son.  He tells Zar of their family history about how he is only half-Vulcan so Zar himself is a quarter.  Most importantly he explains to him that “Krenath” actually refers to parents who have wronged their child not the children themselves.  Later the two will mind meld, a process Spock earlier refused. 

A Romulan fleet enters orbit, with only the USS Enterprise, and the USS Lexington to hold them off.  A task force from Starfleet is on their way but won’t be here for another hour.  Since they can’t beam through shields Kirk and the landing party is stranded.  Commodore Bob Wesley is going to have to team up with Scotty to fight the Romulans.  

Two starships getting ready for a fight!

While trying to sabotage the Romulans’ cloaking device Zar ends up killing a Romulan guard leading to a disagreement about the proper use of killing and violence.  (Personally, I am on Zar’s side on this one.)  Either way they fail to destroy the cloaking device and must report that failure to Captain Kirk. Kirk and Spock decided to give it one more try, but Spock nerve pinches Zar so that he will stay behind.  This mission is a failure to as Kirk and Spock are both captured. 

The Captain and First Officer were now the prisoners of Commander Tal, who as Subcommander had faced off against them in “The Enterprise Incident.”  He is mad at what the two did to his previous commander so he will take some new pleasure in this assignment.   Tal demands to know why this planet is important and what they are hiding on it.  He begins to torture Captain Kirk hoping that one of the two will then tell him.

Zar recovers and he successfully rescues his father and Captain.  He does this without killing Tal which pleases his father.  The Starfleet task force arrives under the command of Admiral Komack, all the Romulans on the planet are captured.  Everything seems to be over except Zar has some news.  He is going to back to his home planet and time.  When asked why Zar explains that he was looking over some images from Enterprise’s computer with Ensign McNair and discovered that around this time his planet was supposed to undergo a social transformation that he will lead.  As they try to argue Zar pointed out that they didn’t think it was odd that his mother spoke English?  He has to go back to preserve the time line and allow his people to enjoy 5,000 years of civilization that they might not otherwise have.  With that he returns through the Guardian of Forever, back to his homeworld and time but much farther south geographically. 

 Back on the ship Kirk and Spock are talking and Kirk tells Spock that he doesn’t know how to view Zar.  As someone who is alive on the other side of a portal, or a person who died around 5,000 years ago.  Spock shows the Captain and image from Sarpeidon.  It’s an image of a Vulcan man giving the “live long and prosper” salute next to an image of the Enterprise.

Additional thoughts: Out of all the books I have reviewed for this blog so far, this one is by far the greatest.  This story set the standard for what a great Star Trek novel could be. The model that the author provides is one that was replicated by others in the four decades sense.  That model is you start with an episode from the show, in this case “All Our Yesterdays,” and use the strengths of the written medium to explore that episode’s concepts in way the sixty -minutes –with-commercials format wasn’t able to.  Include elements from other famous episodes as in this case The Guardian of Forever from “The City on the Edge of Forever.”  Finally bring the characters on an interesting and thought provoking adventure such as they have never been on before.   

What ends up making this so great is it not only tells its own great story but it adds richness to the original material.  I had always thought of “All Our Yesterdays” as a good episode, but I had my issues with it.  In my review of it for this blog I wrote the following:

“In this episode we encounter Mr. Atoz who has sent his entire planet’s population back to the past.  Your mind will quickly go numb at all the possible butterfly effects flying around.  How the Atavachron time travel device survives all these time alterations I have no clue.  It was amazing not to mention lucky for them to dodge all these potential temporal paradoxes to continue to sending their massive population to the past.  Now the Atavachron did require its subjects to go through a preparation where their cells and brainwaves were to match their intended time period.   This is interesting because we have seen our characters go back in time and have never required such a thing.”

 I continued to go through and nitpick every little part about it.  What this book did is it created in me a greater appreciation for the episode than I had before I read it.  Although I just re-read this book for my blog, I originally read this back in middle school.  I think knowing about this story made my subconscious grade “All Our Yesterdays” higher than I might have otherwise.  However let me be clear: this book makes the original source material better by being part of it.

The author’s mastery of these characters is evident in her writing.  There are such great small character moments throughout the book.  My favorite is after Kirk forces his way on to the mission Spock goes ahead and reserves three seats because he knows Dr. McCoy will try to force himself on as well so he might as well prepare now.  Speaking of McCoy, I also like how the author makes him Zar’s best mentor on the ship. 

McCoy was Zar's best mentor

Another rich character moment is also not a positive one.  It seems that Spock seems to inherited toxic father traits from Sarek.  It is often the case that children who were abused grow up to become abusers themselves.  Spock’s seems to have inherited his father’s disposition in dealing with the “disappointing child.”  Spock looks out for him and takes care of him but only as a duty and keeps him at arm’s distance to prevent any attachment from forming.  The low point was near the beginning when he demanded that Zar not call him “father.”  Now I understand that Spock was expecting a small child and is somewhat shocked to see his son fully grown up, which is no excuse he really needs to get over it.

Was not the best role model in terms of fatherhood

I also enjoyed McCoy chiding Kirk as things are getting more intense with the Romulans that he is starting to remind him of Matt Decker from “The Doomsday Machine.”  The best character moment comes when Uhura brings the senior staff back to reality when they were all in a panic about the Romulans using the Guardian of Forever. 

Uhura, "I will let you know when you're all being stupid!"

There may be many flaws with Vulcan culture but how they treat the “Krenath” versus how humans have historically treated “bastards” is not one of them.  In fact, their approach could teach humanity a number of lessons historically.   

I did love the use of Tal from “The Enterprise Incident.” It makes sense that he would have this intense hatred for Kirk and Spock considering their actions against him and his commander in that episode.  Unfortunately for him, like the Romulan Fleet Commander in that episode, he ends up a prisoner of Starfleet.

Tal returns!

Zar’s final fate explains a lot of the Earth/Sarpeidon similarities. Not only was Zarabeth and others great speakers of English, the medieval period that Kirk found himself in were almost identical to our own.  It even included witch hunts.  Now this was probably because they were limited in the costume department in the cost-cutting third season.  Having Zar help the planet in its cultural revolution has a lot of that making since retroactively.  I just wish he told his people that witches were not real.  It would have caused fewer headaches down the road.

 So I never saw the Guardian as a user friendly time machine.  There is just two much of an x-factor with it being an intelligent entity.  Also I thought Spock was a little plot stupid when he didn’t bother to ask the Guardian to make sure to send them back to Zar’s childhood.  Instead he tells the Guaridan to find the lifeform like himself and now he encounters his son almost as old as himself.  Before they used Spock’s tricorder to determine the right jumping point they didn’t ask the Guardian for the moment.  I also wondered when the Romulans showed up, why didn’t anyone suggest asking the Guardian not to let the Romulans through, sense the Guardian always pulls them back when the mission is over its not unreasonable to assume it could discriminate against certain users.. 

An error regarding the USS Lexington, its registry number is NCC-1709 not NCC-1704.  Also since Bob Wesley is a Commodore, when the Enterprise and the Lexington were in battle shouldn’t he have had overall command? 

Commodore Bob Wesley

It is interesting a year after fans saw Spock live out his final moments and die saving everyone in The Wrath of Khan we get these books that are so Spock-centric.  First was Black Fire that was all about our Mr. Spock, and now we have a follow up to one of Spock’s most famous episodes.  It’s almost like the writers were protesting the loss of such a great character.

Should it be canon: Yes, my god yes!

Cover Art: The cover has Spock’s face on the bottom of the viewer’s left.  Spock is facing the viewer. Behind him is the Guardian of Forever. The Guardian of Forever is showing the image of Sarpedion’s ice age.  Next to Spock and in front of the Guardian is Zar facing toward the viewer’s right side.  We see the entire right side of Zar’s face.   The cover does lie a little bit.  Spock’s collar is clearly from his uniform from “The Wrath of Khan” but this story doesn’t take place during that time period rather it takes place in the fifth year of the original five-year mission. 

Final Grade: Final Grade 5 of 5