A Trek Dad’s Review of Yesterday’s Son

As a big fan of the original Star Trek series (hereafter TOS), I recently picked up a trove of old Star Trek novels and have been reading them one by one.

I had heard about Yesterday’s Son from fellow TOS fans and started with this one first. The novel is based on the penultimate episode of TOS: All Our Yesterday’s, and continues the story further implying that during Spock’s brief tryst with Zarabeth resulted in a son, quarter Vulcan, quarter Human and half…Sarpeidon-ese?

Anyhow, the story involves Spock using time-travel to reunite with his son, bring him back to Spock’s time, and helping him integrate to life in the Federation. Further, Spock and his son develop a difficult, strained relationship over their differing backgrounds. Meanwhile, the Romulans are (as always) up to no good, and have their sites on the Guardian of Time from the season 1 episode City on the Edge of Forever. The end is a dramatic conflict with the Romulans, and a nice heroic moment for Spock’s son.

As a novel, it was a fun read with good pacing. I felt the novel deftly balanced key references to TOS without being a blatant fan-service, yet at the same time also provided innovations that didn’t go too far off the rails of Trek canon. In other words, it stayed faithful to Trek lore while also expanding it in a sensible way.

I really enjoyed this book, and would definitely recommend for classic Trek fans.