Yesterday’s Son: A Great Star Trek Novel for Fans of The Original TV Series

A look back at A.C. Crispin’s classic 1983 novel ‘Yesterday’s Son’

A.C. Crispin’s 1983 novel Yesterday’s Son was a non-canon sequel to a very critically acclaimed episode of Star Trek entitled ‘All Our Yesterdays.’ In addition to critics admiring the episode, I’ve seen many fans of Star Trek rank it very high on lists of their favorite episodes of the series. Personally, it’s always been one of my favorites too.

If you’re not familiar with ‘All Our Yesterdays,’ the plot deals with Captain James T. Kirk, Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy, and Mr. Spock visiting the planet Sarpeidon, which is soon going to be destroyed by its star, Beta Niobe, going nova. Because the planet’s inhabitants were aware of Sarpeidon’s impending doom, most of them were able to escape the catastrophe by entering a time portal on the planet called The Atavachron. They could choose any time in their planet’s past and be transported there to live out the remainder of their lives.

While Kirk, McCoy, and Spock were being shown the time portal, they heard a woman’s voice screaming from within it. Kirk decides to investigate, so he runs through the portal. Spock and McCoy soon follow him.

The three of them are all transported back in time. Kirk arrives in a period that is very similar to the 17th century of Earth’s England.

However, since Spock and McCoy entered the portal together after Kirk did, they arrived in a different period than him — Sarpeidon’s ice age, which was 5,000 years in the planet’s past.

While there, they meet and are helped by a woman named Zarabeth. As a result of circumstances that would be best enjoyed by watching the episode, as opposed to me telling you about them, Spock is soon involved in a romantic and intimate relationship with Zarabeth.

I don’t want to reveal too much more about the episode but — slight SPOILER here that should not surprise anyone — Spock and McCoy eventually leave Zarabeth and Sarpeidon’s ice age and return to their own time.

A.C. Crispin’s Yesterday’s Son picks up approximately two years after the events in ‘All Our Yesterdays.’ Kirk and his crew are still on their original five-year mission.

One day, a young ensign assigned to the ship approaches Dr. McCoy and Spock and questions Spock about the origins of his people, Vulcans. She asks if early Vulcans were known to have inhabited any place other than where they were best known for being from, close to the Romulan Neutral Zone. When Spock says no, the ensign tells him that she had been studying archaeological information about the planet Sarpeidon and came across something that puzzled her.

She then shows Spock a photo of cave drawings that had been made 5,000 years ago, during Sarpeidon’s final ice age. One of the drawings clearly shows the face of a young male with pointy ears, who very strongly resembled a Vulcan.

McCoy sees that this news has startled Spock, but he doesn’t discuss it with him. Days later, Spock meets with Captain Kirk and requests a leave so that he can deal with a family matter. Kirk sees that something is deeply troubling him and presses Spock to share what it is.

Spock then reveals that he believes that Zarabeth, the woman he was involved with when he traveled back in time to Sarpeidon’s ice age, later gave birth to his child, and it grew to be the male seen in the cave drawings. Kirk proposes that Zarabeth may have drawn the pictures and they could have been of Spock. However, Spock tells him that there were noticeable differences between his face and the one seen in the drawings, the most notable difference being that the face seemed to be that of a Vulcan male adolescent. To Spock, the only logical conclusion is that the male seen in the drawing is his son.

Spock then tells Kirk that he plans to find a way to travel back in time to find his son — and then bring him back to the future with him.

Will Spock succeed in his mission? If he finds his son, what is his son like?

Could he be similar to Spock — or might he be a brutal barbarian?

What kind of relationship will the two of them have? Also, how would someone who spent their entire life in a pre-historic ice age adjust to being in the futuristic time that Spock lives in?

All of those questions would best be answered by, of course, reading the book for yourself.

I first read it sometime in the mid-1980s. To say that I enjoyed it then would be a massive understatement! I loved it and re-read it multiple times within just a few years.

And I was far from the only person who discovered and loved Yesterday’s Son. After it was released, it became the first Star Trek book, other than the movie novelizations, to make it onto the New York Times Bestseller List.

It was the first of 23 novels written by A.C. Crispin, who unfortunately passed away in 2013. Among those books were three additional Star Trek novels, including a great 1988 sequel to Yesterday’s Son entitled Time For Yesterday.

If you’re a Star Trek fan, I highly recommend Yesterday’s Son to you. It’s a very clever and entertaining story that is incredibly well-written. I thought the author did a wonderful job writing about classic characters and brand-new ones.

I re-read it (and Time For Yesterday) about 10 years ago and I loved them just as much as I did when I first read them decades ago. Last night, I bought digital copies of both books for my Kindle and now I’m excited about reading them again very soon.

If you’re a Star Trek fan, I very highly recommend Yesterday’s Son to you.

Happy reading — and live long and prosper!

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