Star Trek - Vulcan's Forge
In the grand tradition of the New York Times bestsellers Spock's World and Sarek, Vulcan's Forge explores the past and present of one of Star Trek's most popular characters -- and of the ancient culture that forged him.

Just over a year ago, Captain James T. Kirk was lost to the Nexus while saving the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-B from destruction. Aboard the science ship Intrepid II, Captain Spock, commanding some of his old crewmates, must face the loss of his closest friend. But while still in mourning for one friend, he must come to the aid of another.

Decades ago, as a teenager, Spock had teamed up with David Rabin, the young son of a Starfleet captain, to fight an attempted coup on Vulcan that would have turned the planet's people away from the path of logic.

Now a Starfleet officer, Captain David Rabin has been assigned to a harsh desert world much like Vulcan, where the Federation is determined to protect the lives of the inhabitants. But Rabin's efforts are being sabotaged and he has asked for Spock's help against the unknown forces that may well destroy the society he had come to save.

While reflecting on his youthful adventure with David Rabin -- the adventure that set him on the path to Starfleet -- Spock joins with Rabin to face an enemy out of their past and confront deadly Romulan treachery. In the process Spock will decide if the path of his life now leads back toward the family traditions he had once sought to escape.

In Vulcan's Forge, Captain Spock faces his greatest challenge and his most difficult choice.
Fiction, Interplanetary voyages, Interplanetary voyages in fiction, Space ships, Space ships in fiction
Josepha Sherman, Susan Shwartz
Josepha Sherman (December 12, 1946 – August 23, 2012) was an American author, folklorist, and anthologist. In 1990 she won the Compton Crook Award for the novel The Shining Falcon. || Susan Shwartz (born December 31, 1949) is an American author.

She received her B.A. in English from Mount Holyoke College in 1972 and a PhD in English from Harvard University.

Shwartz's Heirs to Byzantium trilogy – Byzantium's Crown (1987), The Woman of Flowers (1987) and Queensblade (1988) is an alternate history series. The Heirs to Byzantium novels are set in a world where Marc Antony defeats Octavius in the Battle of Actium, and joins with Cleopatra to make Byzantium capital of the Roman Empire.

Shwartz's novel The Grail of Hearts (1992) is a fantasy that features the Holy Grail. It also features a sympathetic version of Kundry from Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal; Shwart's Kundry is depicted as a version of the Wandering Jew.

Shwartz has published several novels and sixty short stories.