This is the sequel to Crucible: McCoy Provenance of Shadows, and the middle book of a trilogy revolving around the three main characters of the original Star Trek, McCoy, Spock and Kirk. The three books are all supposed to center around a key incident in the lives off all three, the visit to 1930’s New York in the TV episode “City on the Edge of Forever”, in which Kirk is forced to allow his love Edith Keeler to die to preserve the timeline of the future.

The nice touch is that both books take up the consequences of events in the TV episodes, filling in the lives of the main characters between what we saw on TV, and allowing them to react and follow-up on what happened there. In this book we see how Spock made the transition from Star Fleet to the diplomatic corps, his second attempt at the emotion-purging Kolinahr, and how he deals with the news of the death of his mother Amanda. (Ironically the book comes days after the death of actress Jane Wyatt, who played Amanda on both television and in the film “Star Trek: The Voyage Home”.)

For the complete review go to:

http://radiowood.com/2006/12/review-%e2%80%9ccrucible-spock-the-fire-and-the-rose%e2%80%9d/