Customer Reviews

Vulcan's Soul Trilogy Book Two: Exiles (Star Trek Vulcan's Soul) (v. 2)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In the first book of their Vulcan's Soul trilogy, "Exodus" (Aug. 2004), Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz extrapolated from what little is known of Vulcan history to depict the Sundering. In their newest novel, "Vulcan's Soul, Book Two: Exiles", Sherman and Shwartz portray the long and perilous journey that the exiles undertook and the story is nothing short of remarkable.

Just as in "Exodus", the authors employ dual storylines in Exiles: one that illuminates the past and one the present. Almost two months have passed since Admiral Pavel Chekov was presumed dead in an encounter with the Watraii, the mysterious race who claim that the Romulans seized Romulus and Remus from them. When the head of Starfleet Security Admiral Uhura receives word that Chekov is still alive and is being held by the Watraii, who also have in their possession a rare artifact that could hold the truth about the Watraii claims, Uhura calls upon Spock, Saavik, Scotty, Data and Ruanek for a covert mission to recover Chekov and the artifact.

Meanwhile Karatek, reluctant leader of the exiles and the keeper of memories, provides the account of the long journey undertaken by those who fled Vulcan, some voluntarily, some not. Along the way many ships and lives are lost and the various factions who boarded the ships become more and more fragmented as time and hardship takes its toil on the survivors.

Although the Sundering of the Vulcans and Romulans has been touched on before in a few of the novels, "Exiles" will set what you previously might have imagined on its ear and leaves you anxious to find out where the story goes from here.

This book is an instant Trek classic.

The exiles themselves are a wonderfully written group of complex individuals.

Talk about your wagon train to the stars Vulcan style!

Not only do we have a pioneers' story, there's also a strong flavour of Lord Of The Flies Vulcan style as well.

Karatek and family (as well as extended family) all connect with the reader intimately. I really felt for all of them. The struggles to be true to your beliefs, to duty and to survive were overwhelming. Darwin in space.

Strong, strong, stuff.

Easily Trek book of the year so far, and it's at the top end of my all time favourites list. I enjoyed Exodus. Exiles is a much stronger and brilliant piece.

To capture the essence of early and diverse Vulcans cannot have been done any better than this.

Book follows the first book very well. The entire trilogy provides a great back story for the Sundering that brought about the Romulan Empire.

We journey with the the Vulcans in their tough space travels with loss of life, conflicts, and dwindling numbers of their people. The Vulcans show that they are a hardy people and they try and update their technologies while they look for suitable worlds on which to live.

Wow! Twists, turns, surprises and excitement! No plot spoilers, but I love origin stories and this is one of the best! A great followup to #1 but alas #3 can be guessed at and appears to be an attempt by the publisher to stretch a two book story into three for the sake of profits. That being said, this book is a must!

Why can't I find book two 'Exiles' on CD anywhere? This is just stupid! How can anyone offer only two parts of a trilogy? Can some right thinking person get book two done on CD (or audio download)? Its the only reason I did not rate this book as a 5 star read! Why are so few star trek series in the audio format? Why disregard an entire market segment?

I listened to the audio book. This was two stories. The modern story was kind of a waste of time. But I liked the 'Memory' time line. I thought it was a slow moving story while I was listening to it. I was a bit frustrated. But When it was over I thought about it a bit and I realized that this book moved me. I recognized at least one connection to the original Star Trek series and this book made me view that episode in a new more sinister light. There was another random planetary encounter that really upset me. By the end I was very angry at some of the characters and I realized that means it was a good story. I actually cared about what happened. Even though we know how it will end in a big picture sense, the details are a welcome bit of texture. I really enjoyed it which surprised this action fan. I can't wait for the next book.

Sherman is an excellent writer. It is too bad that she tried to fit the last movie into the ST Universe - we all know the movie was an abomination and the director should be taken out and shot - but she is actually successful at explaining all of the details. If only she had read the rest of the series before writing these books! While the trilogy is engrossing, and well worth reading, you will probably find yourself annoyed at the sharp differences between this work and all the rest of the histories and stories of Star Trek.

It might be best for the reader to believe that all of the action takes place in an alternate universe, that way the inaccuracies can be overlooked. She does have the political and social messages for which ST is famous, and she is dead on accurate with these.

While her characters and story are not as deeply insighful as Diane Duane's, they are certainly deeper and more detailed than most. Her works are highly recommended. Now, if only she would read the rest of the books in the ST series, she could inherit position of favored story-teller in the ST universe.

Two stories, actually, with only the most tenuous of connections: one set in the distant past, the story of the exiles from Vulcan who became the Romulans, their long, arduous, and near-fatal trip and the planetfall on their new world, and one set in the "modern" period of Star Trek, sometime, as near as I can tell, between the third and fourth Next generation movies given that Data is present with an emotion chip.

The characters are handled well, the writing is smooth, the timing is good, and the plot is reasonably interesting. Definitely worth reading.
Of course, it loses a star for having no beginning and no ending, but simply being the middle book of a trilogy. If that doesn't bother you like it does me, feel free to consider this a four-star review.

Thumbs down. Don't buy this one. What I want to know is "Where are the editors on this? Weren't they doing their jobs?" This collective work doesn't hold a candle to that of A.C. Crispin or Diane Duane. Besides being dull and boring, here's why I didn't care for this:

* Whoever wrote the "Memory" chapters about the Vulcan sundering and the founding of the Romulan Star Empire has a terrible writing style. The sentence structure was complex and cumbersome and littered with too many adverbs. What the author was trying to say in instances was hard to fathom even after re-reading passages several times.
* The plot for the "present day" part was thin and predictable. The storyline was not helped by all the cameo appearances of various Star Trek characters; they were an annoyance. The details concerning "present day" characters on Romulus has me scratching my head; what is the relevance? Is there another sequel coming?
* After re-reading the first chapter of "Exodus" after completing the entire 3 volume work, I still can't understand the intent or the necessity of this chapter. In addition, there were characters introduced here (this chapter) in detail who played no role in the rest of the novels. What a waste of my time to try and decode!
* The scene selection and the detail in which they were presented in the "Memory" chapters is questionable. There was material presented, although somewhat interesting, that added little value to the story line. The reason for Karatek's (and his family's) exile to Remus was more tell than show. Why wasn't this developed more fully?
* Some of the books used regular dates; the middle book used star dates. Confusing.
* I think those who follow Star Trek understand that this is basically fantasy. However, there is still a certain amount of fundamental physics that you need to get right. When you have an explosion in deep space (i.e., vacuum), you can't have a shock wave because a traditional shock wave can only be propagated with continuous media like an atmosphere or an ocean. But, you can have ejecta!

There are more faults that I could find with this work. Do yourself a favor and read something by Timothy Zahn or Tom Clancy.