With that said, one's enjoyment of the novel and understanding of the interactions between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy (as well as the majority of the TOS Enterprise crew) with Zar can only come after having read Yesterday's Son. Crispin is a decent, fun Star Trek novel whether one has read it's precursor novel Yesterday's Son. But I can definitely recommend this series of two to Trekkies. I wouldn't mind reading this series again, both books back-to-back this time, instead of more than a year apart as I read them this time (I'm reading all books in publication date order book #1 was written in 1983, book #2 in 1988, with nearly 40 other novels between them). It made things feel more seamless than they often do in the early novels. I also enjoyed how the conversations among Kirk, Spock, and McCoy fit neatly between the first and second Star Trek movies. That said, it was a strange wrap-up to another original character who seemed they would be much more important at the beginning of the book than they ended up being, as if the storyline just faded away in the author's mind when others became more interesting to write. She demonstrates quite clearly that there is a difference between being an esper (empath) and actually being empathetic, managing to save precious young lives in the meantime. Uhura has a small roll in this book, but I still enjoyed her scenes. Now I'd like to see more about her! But, alas, though originally more were planned, I do believe this is the last in the series. I was also fond of several of the other original characters, especially Wynn. I liked Zar from the first book, wanting a follow-up on him before I'd known there was one, and his story in this book didn't disappoint - despite admittedly being a bit unbelievable and even slipping into 'Mary Stu' territory at times. (In fact, I'd like to see a more fleshed out story of the Originators now, especially one exploring the theory that they were also the Progenitors and the Preservers.) The danger to the universe was intriguing, the Guardian of Forever is always nice to see again, Sarpeidon's expanded history was engaging, and the Originators were fascinating.

Starbridge ac crispin