I have not personally read Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz's Vulcan's Forge, but I am aware of how highly it is thought of in Trek Lit circles, and also that it explains the circumstances of Spock's applying to Starfleet Academy and the long rift between him and his father. This is something that Abrams' Star Trek portrayed on-screen years later. How do the two interpretations match up?
I've read so many versions of Spock and Sarek falling out, in Trek lit (Collision Course definitely has a version of the scene, set around the dinner table) and fanfic, I can't tell them apart anymore...
I'm not Personally I thought it a fairly poor book, and I've never seen any great outpouring of enthusiasm for it.
The "Vulcan's..." novels are some of my favorites. Vulcan's Heart, for example, is my absolute favorite Trek novel of all time. I think the Abrams portrayal of Spock and Sarek's antagonism is compatible with most of the ways it's done in the novels.
Naturally they're different, and they represent different timelines anyway. VF is more about the circumstances leading up to Spock's decision to apply to Starfleet, though it does culminate with the formation of the rift. The movie gives Spock a rather simple and straightforward reason: the Science Academy's racism toward his mother repels him. The novel is kinder toward the Vulcans, and it's more about Spock interacting with a Starfleet officer and learning that Starfleet is a worthwhile institution where he could fulfill his potential. The late A.C. Crispin's Sarek shows yet another version of those events. In it, Amanda is so outraged by Sarek's renunciation of Spock that she leaves him for a year afterward.
Agreed. It was a very odd novel to me. Can't really put my finger on it, but it was just.....off, somehow.
Does the Abrams version of events negate the Sherman/Shwartz one though, or can they both happily co-exist?
No more or less so than the version in Vulcan's Forge negates the versions in Sarek or Collision Course. Spock and Sarek had a falling out over Spock's decision to join Starfleet. Does it matter which version you think back to whenever it's referenced? The end result is the same.
They take place in alternate timelines that diverged at least 16 years earlier. So no, they don't negate each other any more than the destruction of Vulcan in the Abramsverse negates its continued existence in the Prime timeline.
Personally I believe that people are assuming a rift between Spock and Sarek in the Nu-Trek timeline based on facts not in evidence. To the best of my recollection at no time is it established in either directly or indirectly that there is any estrangement between the two. To my thinking this may be one of the things that was changed by Nero's arrival in the past.
It's unclear how this Sarek reacted to Spock's entrance into the Academy, but it's clear enough that if there was a rift before, it was mended after Vulcan and Amanda were lost.