Vulcan’s Heart is a pretty expansive story, and a good one, even if it felt a little overlong at times. Set in the 2340s, the novel ties in a number of classic episodes into one tale. There is The Enterprise Incident from The Original Series, and The Next Generation episodes Yesterday’s Enterprise and the Unification storyline.

It touches briefly on Picard’s line in the episode ‘Sarek’ about attending Sarek’s son’s wedding. The only person that could be is Spock. So the authors start there, at the betrothal of Spock and Saavik (sure why not).

Then it moved forward a few years, Picard is captain of the Stargazer and is patrolling the Neutral Zone. Spock has gone to Romulus to follow up on his supposition that Vulcans and Romulans are the same race. And Saavik is sent after him on a secret Starfleet mission, assigned by Uhura.

Unfortunately, Pon Farr is setting in for Saavik and Spock, and will they be able to hold onto their logic and sanity long enough to complete the mission? Will they be able to get back to one another to consummate their relationship?

The Romulan Praetor is about to launch a war, for his glory, not that of the Empire, and he’s selected a Klingon target. A Klingon civilian target.

Happily, the Enterprise C is on site with Rachel Garrett in command, and we know what happens there.

Helping Spock on Romulus is the female Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident, despite her dishonor following the events of that encounter.

See, like I said, there’s a lot going on. For the most part the authors keep all the balls juggling, but sometimes it just doesn’t move along as smoothly and quickly as it should.

It’s not a bad story by any measure, and I love how it ties in so many threads of continuity. It makes for a very interesting read. It’s obvious the authors know their Star Trek, and they have the characters down pretty damn well. You can hear Nimoy’s delivery in Spock’s dialogue, and that makes it work.

And all the tie-ins. That is something I really loved. It almost feels like this one could have been a short series, like Picard. It works, it’s entertaining, even if it some of it was a slog to get through.

The little moments are what make this story work. If you know you’re Trek, this one works really well to wrap itself up in continuity, and if works. It works really well. I do hope to see more from these authors in future books.

The human adventure continues, and I will continue to boldly go.