Star Trek Academy: Collision Course **May be Spoilers**

[Amaris]

I just finished this new novel by William Shatner (and the Reeves-Stevens') and I have to say it's excellent. I read it from start to finish today. It took 6 hours to read, but then I was enjoying it very much.

From the Book Summary:


Young Jim Kirk wants nothing to do with Starfleet, and

never wants to leave Earth. In the summer of 2249, he's a headstrong seventeen-year-old barely scraping by in San Francisco, haunted by horrific memories from his past.

In the same city, a nineteen-year-old alien named Spock is determined to rise above the emotional turmoil of his mixed-species heritage. He's determined to show his parents he has what it takes to be Vulcan -- even if it means exposing a mysterious conspiracy at the heart of the Vulcan Embassy, stretching to the farthest reaches of the Federation's borders. There, a chilling new threat has

arisen to test the Federation's deepest held belief that war is a thing of the past and that a secure future can be forged through peaceful means alone. But it is in San Francisco, home to Starfleet Academy, where that threat will be met by two troubled teenage boys driven to solve the mystery that links them both.

In time, the universe will come to know these young rebels as Captain James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock...two of the Federation's greatest heroes. Yet before they were heroes, they were simply conflicted teenagers, filled with raw ambition and talent, not yet seasoned by wisdom and experience, searching for their own unique directions in life -- a destiny they'll discover on one fateful night in San Francisco, when two lives collide, and two legends are born.

Star Trek: Academy -- Collision Course sets the stage for an exciting new era of Star Trek adventure, and for the first time reveals Kirk and Spock as they were, and how they began their journey to become the Kirk and Spock we know today.


From start to finish, it is a real page turner. For me the effect is two fold;

1> That I get to read a great story by a well respected group of authors, and that the story is fast paced but very detailed and intricate. I would read a hundred pages at a time without taking a break, it was so much fun to read.

2> It gets me primed for the new Star Trek movie. Now, I don't think for two seconds that this book will be tied in any way to the new movie, however, I believe that if the movie is half as good as this book, we're in for a real nice surprise. The book makes it plausible for a prequel type story to work. At the very least, it's geared me up for the movie, which is only 12 months away.

On a scale of 1 to 5, regarding Star Trek books, this one definitely gets a 4.5. Thoroughly enjoyable, well paced, great story, great character interaction.


So has anyone read this book? If so, will you be reading the next novel in the series, titled Trial Run?


J.

 

[misskim86]

Thanks, I can't wait to pick it up I think William Shatners books are awesome.

 

[JAG]

I finally read it. I had picked it up a month ago and read 2 chapters before I put it down. I hated it. I had nothing to read at all and picked it back up. It was a pretty bad Star Trek, it was not a bad book though. Just not one I really enjoyed.

 

[ClayinCA]

I have to say, there have been a lot of comments about this book hereabouts, and not one of them makes this sound like a book I would want to read. Kirk calls Spock "Stretch??" Seriously?!?

 

[Christopher]

ClayinCA said:
Kirk calls Spock "Stretch??" Seriously?!?

Given that he calls McCoy "Bones," is that really so much harder to believe?

 

[JAG]

Yes it is. I was always under the impression that Bones was a medical nickname.

 

[Christopher]

^^Hardly one in common use, though. I've never heard the nickname "Bones" applied to any doctor besides Leonard McCoy and Temperance Brennan (although it is short for "Sawbones," an epithet in somewhat common use in the Old West, or at least in Westerns).

 

[Amaris]

Consider it, though. This is Kirk, he's 17, he's cocky, he's impetuous, he's very intelligent and knows it. I have no doubt that he'd see someone like Spock as a person to be lightly mocked. In other words, I agree with Christopher.


J.

 

[trampledamage]

Jaggle Bells said:
Yes it is. I was always under the impression that Bones was a medical nickname.

I can't remember which book (possibly Crisis on Centaurus) but somewhere it's mentioned that although most people who meet him assume Bones is a medical nickname, the name actually came from when he was younger and very skinny.

Which also means that everyone calls McCoy Bones, it's not just a Kirk nickname.

 

[JAG]

I thought it was a derivative of Sawbones.

 

[trampledamage]

Jaggle Bells said:
I thought it was a derivative of Sawbones.

that's what it is usually, and is why it's a common nickname for doctors. But I have a memory that in one of the books it did say that for McCoy it was originally a reference to being Skin and Bones.

 

[JD]

Wow, I think this is the first truly positive review I have read for this book. Not that it will be enough to get me to read it, because TBH everything I've read about it makes me want to stay very very far away from it.

 

[Amaris]

JD said:
Wow, I think this is the first truly positive review I have read for this book. Not that it will be enough to get me to read it, because TBH everything I've read about it makes me want to stay very very far away from it.

What could you lose by reading it? I read lots of books that my friends tell me are horrible and "stay away from it", and some end up being like that, but others open up possibilities never present before and I end up enjoying the book.


J.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Christopher said:
^^Hardly one in common use, though. I've never heard the nickname "Bones" applied to any doctor besides Leonard McCoy and Temperance Brennan (although it is short for "Sawbones," an epithet in somewhat common use in the Old West, or at least in Westerns).

"Sawbones" was also a term applied to doctors aboard ships during the Age of Sail, as their most common procedure was amputation. It is also slang for a surgeon ( Sawbones Dictionary Definition )

 

[Trent Roman]

J. Allen said:
What could you lose by reading it? I read lots of books that my friends tell me are horrible and "stay away from it", and some end up being like that, but others open up possibilities never present before and I end up enjoying the book.

Time, which is always in short supply, and money if he purchases the book (as opposed to getting it from the library, say). Given these finite resources, there's nothing wrong about being a judicious consumer and checking up on different products and offerings before making a choice between them.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Amaris]

Trent Roman said:
Time, which is always in short supply, and money if he purchases the book (as opposed to getting it from the library, say). Given these finite resources, there's nothing wrong about being a judicious consumer and checking up on different products and offerings before making a choice between them.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

Time and money are important, but then you can't always judge a book by it's cover. Sometimes it's worth delving into.


J.

 

[JD]

I understand what you're saying, but I have not read a single thing anywhere that makes me want to read it, so I figure until I hear something that does I'm not going to.

 

[Amaris]

JD said:
I understand what you're saying, but I have not read a single thing anywhere that makes me want to read it, so I figure until I hear something that does I'm not going to.

That's fine. I'm not saying anything about that, I just wanted to take an opportunity to ask, that's all.


J.

 

[Holytomato]

If I judged a book by what people had told me I never would have read Shadow on the Sun, the TOS Starfleet Academy young adult novels, and the Better Man. :thumbsup:

 

[D Man]

Just a quick question I've been curious about---does this book have a framing story set later on in the Shatnerverse, or do we jump right into the 23rd century action with a clean slate?