Thank you to Titan Books for the copy of this book in return for an honest review

I am a massive Star Trek fan. It’s one of my favourite things in life. I’m a fan of new trek, old trek and everything in-between. My favourite is the original series. I could go on about why I think it’s so good, but I’ll save that for another time. My favourite character is Spock. When I found out this book was being published, as the next instalment to the fantastic Star Trek autobiography series, I was excited.

The book lives up to my expectations. Since it’s from Spock viewpoint it’s not told as a typical autobiography but instead in the format of the t’san a’lat, a traditional Vulcan text that Vulcans would write towards the end of their lives to detail the wisdom they have gained over their lives. The book is written as if it was just before the events of the 2009 film, detailing Spock’s life up that point through a series of chapters, each one dedicated to someone important in Spock’s life.

When I first started this book, I thought it was going to be something like a greatest hits tour, where it would go through the memorable episodes and films in the Star Trek universe. It doesn’t do this at all, in fact it barely mentions the 5 year mission and the events of Wrath of Kahn take up about two pages.

I wouldn’t recommend this for anybody other than big-time Star Trek fans. It’s not for people who haven’t seen at least the original series, the accompanying films and Star Trek Discovery: Season 2. It brushes over a lot of details and assumes you already know those details. For example, the chapter about Captain Kirk is very brief and he is barely mentioned in the book, even though he is an important person to Spock in the universe. The reason for this is explained and it makes sense, but this is an add-on to everything else that has come before.

It also touches on some non-canon books, such as The Pandora Principle, which I haven’t read but will be soon. It’s a really in-depth character study and is enjoyable to read. There is a lot of detail in sections of Spock’s life, especially his time on Romulus that is touched upon in Next Generation. It also feels like a prequel to Star Trek: Picard, with the events at the end of the book directly leading into that show. Spock is also writing this to Picard as the person who will deal with his legacy after death.

I really enjoyed this book. It feels like Spock and you can almost hear it in Leonard Nimoy’s voice when reading. There are moments when the voice is lost and it doesn’t feel like the character at all but for the most part Uma McCormack does a really good job and it’s made me want to revisit my favourite episodes and films all over again.