Star Trek: Vulcan’s Soul Book 3: Epiphany
By Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz; Read by Richard Poe
10 CDs – 12 hours – [UNABRIDGED]
Publisher: Recorded Books
Published: 2007
ISBN: 9731419315176
Themes: / Science Fiction / Star Trek / Vulcans / Romulans /
For a long time, Star Trek on audio was limited to the excellent yet abridged productions published by Simon and Schuster Audio. The Simon and Schuster recordings are packed with music and sound effects, but Recorded Books has published this trilogy of unabridged Trek novels (this is the third) in their single narrator style.
Die-hard Trekkers will find the whole trilogy interesting, as it explains in detail the origins of the Remans, which were introduced in the film Star Trek: Nemesis (2002). It also tells the story of Spock and Saavik, a romance that has been explored in Star Trek novels, but not on the screen, though Captain Jean-Luc Picard mentions attending Spock’s marriage ceremony in the Next Generation episode, “Unification”. He doesn’t mention who Spock married in that episode, but Sherman and Shwartz included the ceremony in their previous novel (which is not part of this trilogy) entitled Vulcan’s Heart.
The trilogy as a whole follows two connected storylines; one from the distant past, and one in the “present”. In the past, the story follows the family of the Vulcan Karatek as they leave Vulcan and travel across the stars to find a new world to colonize. In the “present”, which is set after the Dominion War but before Star Trek: Nemesis, Spock diplomatically deals with the Watraii, a race with grievances against the Romulan Star Empire.
In this book, Karatek’s family and other Vulcan exiles are imprisoned on Remus, indentured to hard labor mining the various ores the inhabitants of Romulus need. The present thread finds the crew of the Enterprise-E fighting Commander Tomalak and the Romulans as they try to find the origins of the invading Watraii and their claims on an artifact that predates the Romulan sundering from Vulcan at the time of Surak.
Richard Poe once again does an excellent job, voicing the various characters of the story; not imitating the actors, but mimicking their speech patterns. He even voices the women well. This is an excellent series of books for those Trekkers who like reading about Star Trek history.
Posted by Scott D. Danielson and Scott A.
