The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (Star Trek Autobiographies Series)

One of the first questions to enter my mind when I saw this title was 'which Kirk?' Was this about Kirk as originally portrayed by William Shatner, as portrayed more recently by Chris Pine, or an amalgam of the two? For the record, this is Shatner's Kirk, one hundred percent. This book begins with Kirks early life--his birth aboard the USS Kelvin is about the only small detail that seems to be lifted from the more recent Star Trek films. From that point on up until shortly before Kirk boards the 'Enterprise-B' for its ill-fated maiden voyage, much of the ground covered will be immediately familiar to anyone who has watched the original 1960s TV series and the seven Star Trek feature films that featured Shatner as Kirk. But Goodman does it in a way that is not simply a boring rehash of Captain Kirk's 'greatest hits'; in fact, it appears to be written with the assumption that most readers will be intimately familiar with the source material and instead focuses on the connections between those well-established episodes, often fleshing out the frequent, yet fleeting references to Kirk's back story from the original TV series (Events from the 1970s animated series are ignored) and tying them together into a coherent narrative that connects them not only to each other but to the feature films as well. It also bridges the gaps between them.to create a continuous, thematic story arc that simply didn't exist in 1960s prime time television. The focus remains consistently on how the events depicted within its pages shaped Kirk as a person and explores Kirk's deep feelings about those events. Goodman creates such a realistic sense of candor in the narrative that it is sometimes difficult to remember that this 'memoir' is of a fictional character; indeed, James T. Kirk as portrayed by David Goodman in this book is in some ways more deeply nuanced, far more thoughtful, introspective, and even modest than the stock character portrayed by William Shatner. This is definitely an engaging and worthwhile read for any Star Trek fan.

I've read many Star Trek books. Mostly because I like the original crew, and I always get that itch for a new adventure to see them in. Now before anyone says anything, yes, I am also a fan of NuTrek. I like the new spin to the franchise. This book isn't a new spin on anything. It retreads a lot of old stories. New fans will be lost in this text. Now if they end up watching the original show, and all the movies, its remarkable on how many gaps this story fills. Let's take the first season of the original series into consideration; In that year, Kirk has to kill his best friend/first officer Gary Mitchell, his brother dies, a woman he loves needs to die because if she doesn't, the Nazi will rule the world. He is later betrayed by one of his oldest friends from the academy, and is on the trails of a person who is masquerading as an actor who nearly killed him as a child. It was amazing that he didn't have mental issues after that first year. The book does a great job taking all these facts, and creating an over all arc that can't be seen by viewing the episodes on their own. All of the sudden TOS turns into Madmen in space. This book is great as a supplement to the series. However, it would be very interesting to see this as a biopic film. I know that will never happen, but I can see a Danny Boyle taking this material and turning it into an interesting film about a remarkable yet tragic man. If you know nothing of Kirk Trek, then this will not be as enjoyable to a person who has seen the episodes and movies. However, it's interesting to see the arc of a hero who has seen so much, but ends up not having the things like a family, a wife, or children. All he had, or was ever given, was space...the final frontier. There's also a pretty mean joke about Scotty's weight....but I must admit, I laughed.

This is difficult to write a review since the book is a compilation of original Star Trek series episodes and early movies. Since I have watched the latest incarnation of Star Trek with Chris Pine as Kirk and really liked the new movies, it took some time to get back in the swing of things with the original episodes (which I am still a huge fan of but just the recent movies are the latest I have seen on the subject.) Saying, that once I got back in the mood of the original, this is an awesome book. Very clever way of handling the subject matter. Kirk is dead and this is his memoir written by him ("edited" by the author - clever way of dealing with this), with a foreword by Dr. McCoy and an afterword by Mr. Spock. What is also neat is how the "editor" allowed Kirk to reminisce about all the exploits of the Starship Enterprise and her crew with additional thoughts by Kirk. Kirk becomes much more multi-dimensional. The "editor" gives Kirk a chance to "explain" why he did things and chose the paths he did. I also indicated there are "some twists" because the "editor" gives Kirk a chance to show things from his perspective and many times that is quite a bit different than people may have "seen" on the TV series. As I mentioned, hard to give a decent review because this is such a different book but what a wonderful read once you get in the mindset that this is James T. Kirk telling his story his own way. Highly recommended especially for fans of the original series.

At long last, Memory Alpha historian David Goodman has presented what appears to be a heavily edited version of the dictated autobiography of the late Captain James T. Kirk. While the story is--as one would expect--thrilling, serious scholars of Starfleet history are likely to be disappointed by the lack of answers to long-held questions about Kirk's two famous five-year missions. Goodman's failure to provide any editorial introduction to explain how the book was written is particularly problematic. While it's understandable that the passages on the better-known incidents of Kirk's voyages, such has his infamous encounters with Khan Noonien Singh, would be kept brief, the serious student longs for greater detail. And other, lesser-known incidents of Kirk's voyages--for instance his first contact with the Legarans, virtually unknown even to serious Kirk scholars--ought to be more thoroughly covered. By far the most startling revelation in Kirk's memoirs are his allegations that Admiral Heihachiro Nogura oversaw an illegal genetic experiment on the planet Dimorus. If true, this accusation is a devastating blow to the reputation of one of Starfleet's most highly respected admirals, and one long believed to have been close friends with Kirk. Kirk's claims are plausible, and there is no obvious reason to doubt them, but there is also as yet no corroborating evidence to sustain his account. Goodman must bring forth the original transcripts of Kirk's interviews and any other evidence that might support these scandalous claims, particularly given the sensitivity of Federation-Klingon relations in the post-Khitomer era. The need for confirmation here is especially important, given Kirk's admission in his memoirs that on least two occasions, he falsified entries in his own Captain's Log. (The context makes clear, however, that these incidents hardly justify the verdict of one Klingon reviewer who has labeled the book "a tissue of lies from humanity's greatest intergalactic criminal.") Also missing is information that Kirk scholars have long searched for--for example, Kirk's thoughts regarding the scientific fraud perpetuated by his son, Dr. David Marcus, in the use of protomatter as part of the disastrous Genesis Experiment. Marcus's death, and his mother's disappearance into seclusion after the destruction of the Genesis Planet, has left much of this incident unaccounted for. How much Carol Marcus knew about what became one of the greatest scientific failures of the 23rd century--arguably responsible, not only for the destruction of the planet, but for the deaths of the Genesis scientific crew, and the crew of the USS Grissom--remains a hotly disputed mystery. If Kirk had any light to shine on it, this book provides none. It also makes no mention of Kirk's marriage to Miramanee, of his thoughts on the use of his genetic material as a tool of planned genocide on Gideon, or of that most controversial of his decisions, the destruction of Vaal. One final (but hardly the last) example of the book's frustrating silence is Kirk's thoughts regarding the origins of V'Ger, and the eerie similarity to his encounter years before with Nomad, another Terran space probe that emerged from oblivion on a deadly mission of "protecting" machines from what it believed to be organic pollution. Many cutting-edge scientists, at Starfleet and at the Vulcan Science Academy, among others, have speculated for years that the two probes may have encountered the same unknown species of cybernetic organisms ("a race of living machines," in Captain Spock's words) which assimilated these probes and dispatched them to digitize organic life and incorporate it into its matrix. If so, this race could present an extraordinary danger to Federation worlds in the future, and debates still rage as to whether Starfleet should invest in defense weaponry now, or whether resistance would be futile. Kirk was certainly party to these important discussions, but this book makes no reference to them. Kirk was a reticent man--a man, as Spock famously said, of "deep feelings," who was typically silent about them. Yet he was also extraordinarily intelligent and well-schooled. His media reputation as a swashbuckling playboy does violence to the character of a man who, for all his faults, was a dedicated leader and a highly competent scientific thinker. Kirk's dictation of this manuscript was completed shortly before the tragic incident on the Enterprise-B, in which Kirk's life was lost, and it is unclear how complete Kirk considered it (another thing editor Goodman withholds from us). It's understandable that, at the threshold of retirement, Kirk's thoughts would turn largely to his failed personal relationships, his love of family, and other personal matters, rather than giving the historian insight on the questions that his explorations have left us. Yet it is a shame that Starfleet's greatest and most successful captain has left us a memoir that raises still more questions. Still, it is a beginning. If Goodman will release the uexpurgated memory tapes of the original recordings of these dictations, he will have done historians a tremendous service.

This is a fun time for die-hard Trek fans. In the best chapters, Goodman (writing as Kirk) takes the few canonical mentions of Kirk's life prior to the Enterprise that exist in the show and fills in the blanks. These early sections are the most creative; the middle section of the book is an episodic (heh) re-telling of many of the show's episodes from Kirk's perspective. Some story arcs and themes emerge that weren't there in the individual episodes (Hint: being an old friend or relative of Kirk's generally doesn't work out too well) but have some amount of emotional resonance. Although "Kirk" is allowed to express some regrets over choices made and not made, Goodman treads pretty lightly on Our Hero, mostly staying close to the surface and carefully not re-casting the character in any kind of new light. The addition of "editor's footnotes" (the book is supposed to have been published posthumously) add some additional bits of fun and versimillitude. Recommended for fans of The Original Series.

Let's go with the pros and cons: Pros: *Ties together beautifully the disjointed segments of Kirk's past mentioned throughout the series and movies. *Prose flows very well and is easy to read. *Seeing the inner turmoil of Kirk despite his exterior confidence is a great concept (and is often true with leaders). *Written by one of the writers of Star Trek: Enterprise, and uses his knowledge of the planned 5th season to include some tantalizing new information about the unseen Romulan War. *Gives Kirk true dimensionality when it comes to the relationships he had with women over the years, instead of just keeping them a long string of one-night stands. *The many "long-time" friendships/acquanitances or one-off characters we are introduced to in the series are really fleshed out, and really help to give depth that was otherwise fairly lacking. *Excellent in his depiction of how the crew we've come to know got assembled--in a manner that doesn't feel at all contrived mirrors how we as people forge connections and friendships over our lives. *How Kirk came to implicitly trust Spock is really rather well-done. *The explanation of Star Trek V is... well... appreciated, since the plot of the movie was never even close to good "science" fiction. *Finally gives depth to Kirk regarding the numerous crewmembers that die under Kirk's command over the years and how that would actually affect a REAL person. Cons: *Scientific error - at one point, Kirk is exposed to the vacuum of space, and the writer has him HOLD HIS BREATH until he can be back in an oxygen environment. This is a VERY COMMON HOLLYWOOD MISTAKE, and it is unfortunate that Mr. Goodman (or his editor) didn't check into the science of this before he published the book, as this prevented us from giving it a 5-star rating. Unlike holding your breath underwater (which is where this erroneous association comes from), doing so in space will kill a person pretty quickly, as their lungs will rupture, and oxygen bubbles will be forced into their blood stream. 2001: A Space Odyssey made this very same mistake and the science community pointed this fact out (just google: "can you hold your breath in space?" or "2001 scientific inaccuracies"). *Scientific questionability - After the Enterprise travels back in time 3 days from the planet Psi 2000, Kirk orders that they return and collect the crew from the planet...and do! This would create a paradox, in that they would encounter their former selves and disrupt their own timeline from occurring. It is not as if time gets erased in the entire universe just because one thing travels back in time. Granted, one can make the argument for their arriving in a different quantum reality, but this added segment felt to be pushing it. (Yes, I know Andre Bormanis said it was possible, but I'm not so sure.) *Too many naming of Family Guy or Enterprise co-workers throughout anytime an non-canon officer is in the story; the most uncomfortable being quite literally the "Peter Griffin" character, with a "gag" to go with it. *Several typos - "aother" instead of "another"; pg 149 wrote "jump- started" with a space instead of "jump-started"; pg 98, last paragraph - format error - two sentences spoken by two different characters inside one paragraph pg 105 Sol System, pg 211 Solar System, pg224 Solar System, pg 250 Sol System, -- "Sol System" is correct since it referring to the name of our planetary system (a proper noun), while "Solar System" is not correct ; if "Solar System" is used in its correct context (referring to it as a term for our planetary system only and not by its name--thereby a noun), it would not be capitalized ("solar system"). The same is true when the author states "Galaxy" throughout the book; this also should not be capitalized, as it is not a proper noun. (google: history nasa gov printFriendly styleguide) Overall: Having read the Horatio Hornblower series by C. S. Forester, Goodman does a great job in aligning Kirk's life to the thinking and internal self-questioning that the Hornblower character had, which is very appropriate in that Gene Roddenberry himself envisioned Kirk as a Horation Hornblower in space (granted, Christopher Pike was more so in retrospect, but the analogy still applies to our familiar captain). If he could make the correction to the science errors in future printings, and the other typos, I think this would translate very well to a graphic novel, and even better if Shatner himself were to read it for the audio version. Thank you Mr. Goodman; we recommend your book. Now please write one on the Romulan War we missed out on!

An easy & good read for Star Trek fans, especially The Original Series. But if you’re not familiar with TOS, you might get bored.

My on-and-off bathroom reading for some time has been David A. Goodman's THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JAMES T. KIRK. I just finished it, and I quite enjoyed it. Goodman took on two very difficult tasks. The first, obvious one, is making a coherent whole out of the contradictory mess that was TOS; the creators, after all, were literally making it up as they went along, and inconsistencies such as whether Kirk has three nephews or only one abound. On this score, Goodman succeeds in finding entertaining solutions that hold together and make sense. The second difficult task is a more subtle one. The brilliance of STAR TREK was that the main character's inner life was EXTERNALIZED: Spock was Kirk's rationalism; McCoy was Kirk's humanism. The triumvirate comprised three bodies but only one complete mind. To write an autobiography -- a first-person narrative -- Goodman had to give Kirk an INTERNALIZED inner life, a monologue of his own thoughts. As "ghostwriter," Goodman had to make a choice, and he did: he decided Kirk was not just a lonely man (a recurrent theme in TOS, best embodied in "Requiem for Methuselah"), but also a man plagued by regrets: for the lives he'd ruined, over the people who'd died because of him, for the careers of others that had stalled or ended because of his actions. It's an interesting choice: a much more fraught, hand-wringy Kirk than we've ever seen before. As a reader, you can only decide for yourself whether Goodman's depiction of Kirk's inner life rings true. For me, it didn't quite seem the Jim we'd come to know and love, but it was artistically an interesting choice, and I admired the integrity with which Goodman pursued it. Recommended.