James T. Kirk in 24th century novels
- Thread starter mendelin
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Kirk's only alive in the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens novels. In the rest of the novelverse, he stayed dead after the movie Generations.
I have nothing against Kirk, as such, but I am glad that the regular Treklit continuity is keeping him dead.
Nobody lives forever - not even fictionally.
Then again, I guess it's not surprising that Shatner's own continuity would make Kirk out to be some kind of unbeatable, immortal übermensch. Shat would never kill off his own character, would he?
Nobody lives forever - not even fictionally.
Then again, I guess it's not surprising that Shatner's own continuity would make Kirk out to be some kind of unbeatable, immortal übermensch. Shat would never kill off his own character, would he?
Does it mean, that Shatner's novels were ignored? But why?
I'm shocked
Err, no, because he was 60 years old when the Nexus carried him forward from 2293 to 2371, at which time he died. In the Shatnerverse, where he was resurrected soon thereafter, he would therefore be physiologically 74 years old in 2385.
Does it mean, that Shatner's novels were ignored? But why?
I'm shocked
There has never been a requirement for all novels to share a common continuity; indeed, the Shatner novel series began at a time when continuity among novels was pretty much nonexistent.
As for why the Shatner novels were not incorporated into the main novelverse when it did emerge a few years later, part of it is that the Shatner novels were geared for a different audience -- they were hardcovers, big blockbuster action epics with a celebrity author, so they'd tend to be read by a more mainstream audience that wouldn't necessarily follow the other novels. And nobody was going to tell William Shatner that he had to follow the lead of other novelists; he could do whatever the heck he wanted because he's William Shatner. And if he was going to go off and do whatever he wanted and tell big epic cosmos-shattering stories without any consideration for what the other novels were doing, it was more practical for the other novels to maintain a separate continuity so that they could continue telling their own stories without being swerved in some wild new direction by Shatner's latest brainstorm.
Granted, some of the Shatner/Reeves-Stevens novels did incorporate some characters and ideas from the novelverse, but they contradicted it as well. I think the first couple of trilogies are relatively compatible, or at least were at the time, but the third (Totality) trilogy conflicted with the main novel continuity on several points, like when Bajor joined the Federation and when Titan ended its Romulus mission and began its tour of exploration. So by that point, it was pretty unambiguous that the continuities were incompatible.
I think the intent was to allow the Reeves-Stevens and Shatner to do their own thing and not worry about what the other novels were doing.
Spectre mentioned the events of Ship of the Line, and was in turned mentioned in The Future Begins.
As I said, it's mainly the Totality trilogy (the three Captain's Noun books) that overtly contradict the novelverse (even while cribbing characters from the Titan novels). I'm not sure about the first two trilogies, although I do recall that the Shatnerverse version of the Mirror Universe is incompatible with the novelverse version spanning Age of the Empress through Rise Like Lions.
That's it in a nutshell.
As much as I love James T Kirk, I think he's better left dead following Generations. That being said, I am immensely grateful for Greg Cox, Dayton Ward, et al. for bringing him back from time to time.
Thanks!
By coincidence, I just got my advance author copies of my new TOS novel, which is due out later this months. And, yes, this is very much a novel about James T. Kirk . . . and Seven of Nine.
Well, all the tie-in "-verses" are supposed to be extensions of the canonical Prime universe. They have to be consistent with it (up to the point of publication), even when they aren't consistent with each other.
You never wholly leave the Nexus. So my interpretation is that the Shatnerverse novels are what the part of Kirk that is left in the Nexus began experiencing after Kirk died on Veridian III.
My take on it was that there is still a shade of Kirk in the Nexus (even though Guinan couldn't sense him) and the one in the Shatnerverse is his physical body repaired and reanimated.
I would like more stories of Kirk in the movie era books.
Yup, I'm looking forward to reading "TOS: No Time Like the Past". Hope it does well for you.
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Good news! I"m working on one now, due out out later this year.
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