Spock's World by Diane Duane

 

Spock's World by Diane Duane
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Spock's World is easily one of my top five Star Trek novels, I own a rather battered hardback copy of the novel and as an ebook and have read it more times than I probably should but it is really that good. In this novel we get the main storyline which deals with the Vulcan population considering pulling out of the Federation, a global debate is imminent and people from all walks are invited to debate the proposition in front of the Vulcan people. As you would expect all our favourite characters get their time under the spotlight and we get many secondary characters playing major roles as the story unfolds. In addition to this main story we get a number of secondary elements dealing with aspects of Vulcan from the birth of their star system, their evolution into sentience, Surak, Sarek and many other aspects which add so much more to the Vulcan that we knew so little about from the tv series.
Personally I simply love reading about the birth of the first Vulcan language and the experience of wonder as the world is opened to a single vulcan who looks beyond what he can see and is determined to face the unknown. The "Forge" a huge desert where life is forever lived on the edge provides the backdrop to a chilling story of passion and anger and underlines how known Vulcan physical traits played their part in the history of its people. The story of the political/economic and eugenic aspects of the vulcan society seen through the interaction of two of the main "houses" on the verge of a major space exploitation project is beautiful and sorrowful to read but reveals so much of what Vulcan was before Surak. As for Surak his story is wondrous and inspiring and his revelation after seeing an antimatter weapon used on Vulcan's sister planet shows how near the edge these people were before Surak brought sanity to his people. Finally Sarek a master of computer tech posted to the Vulcan embassy on Earth and his rise as an attache finally as ambassador and his meeting to one Amanda Grayson. There is a lot more in the novel, some of which has been expanded upon in other works by Diane but overall the structure of this book is perfection giving you a great core story with to coin a phrase "fascinating" looks into Vulcan society. Spock's World is a must read for any original series Star Trek fan but sits apart as Vulcan and its people have been portrayed significantly different in recent tv and film and for me at least those recent stories and insights failed to love upto what Diane created for her readers.

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