Epic fanwank! And I say that with love. Though the series has its missteps (Uhura and Chekov living in Picard's day? Really? Spock married Saavik? Yuck?) it provides an interesting angle on the Romulan origin story, divergent from Diane Duane's Rhihannsu mythos. Provides the kind of story-building, creating a new angle to the familiar story, that is relatively rare on modern Trek fiction. Makes the execrable film Nemesis almost palatable. No, not really. It's nice to imagine this trilogy as the lost film that ended the TNG movie saga.

Third book in the "Vulcan's Soul" trilogy (follows Exodus and Exiles). In this final novel in the Vulcan's Soul trilogy, we see the fate of Karatek and his people stranded and enslaved on the frozen half of the Romulan twin world, Remus, and also the origins of both the Remans and the Watraii. In the present, post-Dominion War Next Generation time frame, Ambassador Spock, Captain Saavik, and the others aboard the U.S.S. Alliance face a confrontation with not only the Watraii but also the Romulans over the ancient Romulan relic stolen by the Watraii and recovered by Spock and company. Adding to the situation is the kidnapping of the Romulan Praetor by the Watraii, to which Starfleet sends in Captain Picard and the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise-E to assist. Over the course of the novel, the connections between the various sub-plots (the "Memory" sections from the time of the Sundering and those in the present) become apparent. Opinion: best of the three (then, again, I'm a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan in general, so my interest picked up even more when Picard and company came into the story. The Karatek storyline gets better here, too, however, as it nears it's inevitable conclusion. There are even some somewhat interesting side chapters delving into the minds of the various high ranking Romulan and Federation political figures. However, there are also a few parts where it is not entirely clear just what is being referred to if one has not already read Sherman and Shwartz's earlier novels, Vulcan's Forge and Vulcan's Heart. (Finished reading 2/2/10) ( )

http://eclecticlibrarian.net/blog/2009/01/2009books1-6/ ( )

The conclusion to the Vulcan's Soul trilogy. *How* many races were the Vulcans Sundered into? And can war be averted in the "present"? ( )

A linked pair of Star Trek universe stories, one from the distant past in which the ships that have left Vulcan have found a new home, of two worlds: Romulus, a fertile paradise, and Remus, an icy and unstable wasteland. Karatek and his family are marooned on Remus, forced into slave labor to mine its precious resources, or face starvation by their brethren on Romulus. This leads to a civil war and second exile, which thousands of years later develops into a conflict that Spock and his wife Saavik are trying despearately to halt. Interesting expansion of events that were only briefly hinted at in the original TV series. ( )