Well, I hope so, since both Terrell and Kirk's log at the end of TWOK said that they were marooned.
Spoilers The Autobiography of James T. Kirk - announcement and reviews
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Well, I hope so, since both Terrell and Kirk's log at the end of TWOK said that they were marooned.
Perhaps many of the details of FF have been contradicted, but the idea of Winona being in charge of the family farm while George Samuel Kirk the Elder was off working at a starbase and following Bob April around on an officially-off-the-record mission aboard the still-unfinished USS Enterprise (and then taking the teenage Jim Kirk, teetering on the edge of juvenile delinquency after what he saw on Tarsus IV, if I remember right, on another such excursion in hopes of straightening him out) was central not only to FF, but to its sequel, Best Destiny. (Say what you will about Diane Carey's tendency to wear her anarchist politics on her sleeve, but there's nothing wrong with her Kirk backstory.)
That James T. Kirk's father was George Samuel Kirk the Elder, and his mother was named Winona was established in FF and BD long before the first Abramsverse movie made it canonical (much the same as Sulu's first name was established in The Entropy Effect long before it was made canonical in ST5:TFF), and while only the names (and indeed, only "George" and "Winona"; not the middle name of "Samuel," nor the nickname of "Geordie," though they weren't actually contradicted) were actually made canonical, certain other central points originating in those two books had at least stood without any actual contradiction:
1. James T. Kirk grew up on a farm in Iowa (prior to FF, we'd known about Iowa, but not about the farm).
2. "Geordie" Kirk was career Starfleet, like his son, and was, for at least a portion of Kirk's childhood, an absentee father, with the two communicating via handwritten letters.
3. Winona Kirk ran the family farm during the period in #2.
4. Towards the end of the period in which he grew up with an absentee father, and as a result of what he witnessed on Tarsus IV, James T. Kirk teetered, at age 16, on the edge of juvenile delinquency, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with space travel.
Most of what, in FF and BD, has since been contradicted was in the realm of details: important to the plots of the novels, but not central to their themes, and not major continuity issues. These four issues are central to the novels' themes, and are major continuity issues. (And indeed, I would say that the fact that "Geordie" Kirk was not merely absentee, but deceased in the Abramsverse is the obvious explanation for the Abramsverse James T. Kirk having not merely teetered on the edge of juvenile delinquency, but fallen into it.)
I don't have a particularly high standard of continuity; that's how I can regard TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, Voy, Ent, all prime-universe movies, and every prime universe novel all the way back to Spock Must Die and Mission to Horatius as being "the same continuity," but completely inverting major elements of the established (if non-canonical) backstory of Kirk's childhood breaks even my standard of continuity.
Understand, I don't regard this as revisionism in the same category as the unspeakable things that were done to Baum's Oz (starting with Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf, continuing with Philip Jose Farmer, through to Gregory Maguire). Neither do I, based on what little I've read so far (I was going to wait a bit longer, but last night, I didn't want to break out a magazine, nor go out to my car to retrieve the literary magazine I'd started reading this week) classify the present opus in the category of "unspeakably vile waste of paper" that I reserve for Gillebaard's Moon Hoax (nor even in the same category as The Starless World, World Without End, Perry's Planet or the ever-popular Devil World, which I regard as the four worst Bantam ST novels).
It just seems like a pointless breach of four major never-before-contradicted continuity elements that have had significant influences on canon.
1. James T. Kirk grew up on a farm in Iowa (prior to FF, we'd known about Iowa, but not about the farm).
2. "Geordie" Kirk was career Starfleet, like his son, and was, for at least a portion of Kirk's childhood, an absentee father, with the two communicating via handwritten letters.
3. Winona Kirk ran the family farm during the period in #2.
4. Towards the end of the period in which he grew up with an absentee father, and as a result of what he witnessed on Tarsus IV, James T. Kirk teetered, at age 16, on the edge of juvenile delinquency, and wanted absolutely nothing to do with space travel.
Most of what, in FF and BD, has since been contradicted was in the realm of details: important to the plots of the novels, but not central to their themes, and not major continuity issues. These four issues are central to the novels' themes, and are major continuity issues. (And indeed, I would say that the fact that "Geordie" Kirk was not merely absentee, but deceased in the Abramsverse is the obvious explanation for the Abramsverse James T. Kirk having not merely teetered on the edge of juvenile delinquency, but fallen into it.)
I don't have a particularly high standard of continuity; that's how I can regard TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, Voy, Ent, all prime-universe movies, and every prime universe novel all the way back to Spock Must Die and Mission to Horatius as being "the same continuity," but completely inverting major elements of the established (if non-canonical) backstory of Kirk's childhood breaks even my standard of continuity.
Understand, I don't regard this as revisionism in the same category as the unspeakable things that were done to Baum's Oz (starting with Langley, Ryerson, and Woolf, continuing with Philip Jose Farmer, through to Gregory Maguire). Neither do I, based on what little I've read so far (I was going to wait a bit longer, but last night, I didn't want to break out a magazine, nor go out to my car to retrieve the literary magazine I'd started reading this week) classify the present opus in the category of "unspeakably vile waste of paper" that I reserve for Gillebaard's Moon Hoax (nor even in the same category as The Starless World, World Without End, Perry's Planet or the ever-popular Devil World, which I regard as the four worst Bantam ST novels).
It just seems like a pointless breach of four major never-before-contradicted continuity elements that have had significant influences on canon.
Sorry, but that's wrong. People keep mistakenly giving Diane Carey credit for those names. It was Vonda N. McIntyre who coined the names George and Winona for Kirk's parents in Enterprise: The First Adventure in 1986, two years before Final Frontier. (Which makes three first names McIntyre coined, since Hikaru was hers too.)
^ Wait, is that a Star Control reference? I don't think I've ever seen one of those here before. I wish I could give you some sort of prize or something... 
^ Wait, is that a Star Control reference? I don't think I've ever seen one of those here before. I wish I could give you some sort of prize or something...
Why do you do this thing?
(More people should know of it, it is amazing)
TFA doesn't mention George Kirk at the change of command ceremony for Enterprise - though I don't recall him mentioned as being dead. Winona is definitely mentioned as being there, though. In the Prime universe Spock says George Kirk lived to see it.
I never said it did. I'm only saying that McIntyre, not Carey, was the one who first named Kirk's parents George and Winona. I'm talking strictly about the first names, nothing else. Carey was the first person to write a book about George Kirk, Sr., so people tend to assume she coined his full name, but she actually borrowed it (and that of his wife) from McIntyre.
(By the way, Enterprise: The First Adventure was also the book that first established McCoy's wife's name as Jocelyn, so McIntyre deserves credit for that one too. But unlike George, Winona, and Hikaru, that name has never been used canonically, only in the books.)
This can go in circles forever, but I wasn't meaning to say you had.
This morning, I got through the second chapter (Tarsus IV). No new contradictions, but I do see an omission: in The Lost Years (and I had to do some research before I remembered which book I'd seen it in), Dillard had established that Kirk had saved Riley's life on Tarsus IV, but Riley doesn't even get mentioned in this version of the story.
That said, an omission is hardly the same thing as a contradiction. Omissions happen all the time in real autobiographies. Consider Dorothy Hamill, the figure skater. She wrote two autobiographies: On and Off the Ice, in the early 1980s (during her brief marriage to Dean Paul Martin), and A Skating Life, in 2007. Her first autobiography completely omits the fact that, like a great many future Olympic skaters (and an enormous number of skaters with no such ambitions), she began competing in ISIA (now ISI), before she entered the serious end of the sport. Her second autobiography corrects that omission.
Judging this opus as if it were a real autobiography of a real person, I classify the omission of any reference to Kirk saving Riley's life as being no different from the kind of omission Ms. Hamill made in her first autobiography, and assume that the in-universe motivation for the omission was either simple modesty, or perhaps because Riley didn't want it mentioned.
I brought up the subject of Oz revisionism earlier in this thread, as a matter of comparison. I find the 1939 film's revisionism particularly galling because (1) an astonishing number of people (presumably out of utter ignorance) treat it as if it, rather than the books that were written decades earlier, were the canon, (2) the most benign of the changes (e.g., "ruby slippers" instead of "silver shoes") were utterly pointless (and in that particular case, presumably aimed solely at exploiting the use of Technicolor), and (3) the most egregious of the changes (reducing a genuine fairy tale to a dream-fantasy) not only were pointless, but also managed to change the meaning, and drastically lower the stakes. (Of course, 2 and 3 wouldn't be so galling if it weren't for 1.)
I find the changes to Kirk's boyhood home life irritating because I don't particularly care for revisionism, particularly when it's pointless. On the other hand, I don't find them nearly so galling as what the screenwriters did to Oz, because (1) I recognize that what it's contradicting isn't canon, and (2) nothing's being reduced to a dream-fantasy, and no stakes have been lowered.
That said, an omission is hardly the same thing as a contradiction. Omissions happen all the time in real autobiographies. Consider Dorothy Hamill, the figure skater. She wrote two autobiographies: On and Off the Ice, in the early 1980s (during her brief marriage to Dean Paul Martin), and A Skating Life, in 2007. Her first autobiography completely omits the fact that, like a great many future Olympic skaters (and an enormous number of skaters with no such ambitions), she began competing in ISIA (now ISI), before she entered the serious end of the sport. Her second autobiography corrects that omission.
Judging this opus as if it were a real autobiography of a real person, I classify the omission of any reference to Kirk saving Riley's life as being no different from the kind of omission Ms. Hamill made in her first autobiography, and assume that the in-universe motivation for the omission was either simple modesty, or perhaps because Riley didn't want it mentioned.
I brought up the subject of Oz revisionism earlier in this thread, as a matter of comparison. I find the 1939 film's revisionism particularly galling because (1) an astonishing number of people (presumably out of utter ignorance) treat it as if it, rather than the books that were written decades earlier, were the canon, (2) the most benign of the changes (e.g., "ruby slippers" instead of "silver shoes") were utterly pointless (and in that particular case, presumably aimed solely at exploiting the use of Technicolor), and (3) the most egregious of the changes (reducing a genuine fairy tale to a dream-fantasy) not only were pointless, but also managed to change the meaning, and drastically lower the stakes. (Of course, 2 and 3 wouldn't be so galling if it weren't for 1.)
I find the changes to Kirk's boyhood home life irritating because I don't particularly care for revisionism, particularly when it's pointless. On the other hand, I don't find them nearly so galling as what the screenwriters did to Oz, because (1) I recognize that what it's contradicting isn't canon, and (2) nothing's being reduced to a dream-fantasy, and no stakes have been lowered.
I vaguely remember that from The Lost Years, but really, Kirk saving Riley's life is a little too small-universe for me. Even given that Kirk and Riley were both on Tarsus IV at the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean they knew each other, at least not well. Neither of Riley's episodes hinted at any personal connection between him and Kirk, even the one that established them both as witnesses to Kodos's massacre.
So it's not an "omission," it's just two different tie-in authors interpreting an event in different ways. It would only be an omission if it left out something important from an actual episode or film.
No; I'm using it, as I stated, in the sense of the omission I cited in the first of Dorothy Hamill's two autobiographies. Omissions of this type, whether because some detail didn't seem relevant at the time of writing, or to avoid embarrassment, or for some political reason, occur all the time in autobiographies, the same as they occur in any other kind of biographical or historical writing, because it's simply not practical to include everything. The Bully Pulpit, Doris Kearns Goodwin's duo-biography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, is over nine hundred pages long, and takes months to read. Goodwin is a Pulitzer-prize-winning historian. And yet I can't recall it giving much coverage at all to Roosevelt's years as a rancher in North Dakota, certainly not as much coverage as one would find in a more specialized book of less than half the length.
Omissions are not contradictions. Failing to mention that something happened is not the same as saying that it didn't happen (or that it happened in a manner that's entirely different from the way others say it happened).
In-universe, saving Riley's life was omitted because Kirk had to play the same game of "lifeboat" with his material as any other autobiographer, biographer, or historian. Real world, we already know that Mr. Goodman doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of TrekLit; he said as much himself, and making sure the book didn't contradict any canon is a lot more important than throwing in nods to inherently non-canonical material.
Omissions are not contradictions. Failing to mention that something happened is not the same as saying that it didn't happen (or that it happened in a manner that's entirely different from the way others say it happened).
In-universe, saving Riley's life was omitted because Kirk had to play the same game of "lifeboat" with his material as any other autobiographer, biographer, or historian. Real world, we already know that Mr. Goodman doesn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of TrekLit; he said as much himself, and making sure the book didn't contradict any canon is a lot more important than throwing in nods to inherently non-canonical material.
Aha. Okay, but if you're not meaning it from the perspective of "everything happened", then it's not an omission as there's no guarantee that it happened in the set of events Goodman is presenting. It would only be an omission if we knew a priori that it happened in this set of events. Miramanee is an omission, but this version of Kirk may just not have saved Riley. That's why I assumed you were proceeding with the assumption of total inclusion, because under that framework it could be seen as one; for something to have been omitted it has to have definitively happened.
Back in September I bought this book around noon in London in Forbidden Planet. I was actively looking for it (thanks to some fan who had mentioned it on the internet) and very happy that I found it. I started to read in the plane on the way home and when I arrived at midnight I was through. It helped me through a long frustrating travel. I guess though that it would have not made any difference if I had been home earlier, as I just would have sat down and read on till the end anyway
I think it is very unfortunate that the info in the blurb on Amazon that Kirk was born on the Kelvin has spiked so much outrage in comments, obviously by people who did not even read the book. This negativity is not deserved and actually misleading.
I loved it from start till end. I loved especially the early years and the academy time. All those names had only been characters in a TV show so far - but with this book, they became real people to me. For example the relationship with Ben Finney and how his daughter came to her name. Or "seeing" the things Finnegan actually did. And I always had wanted to know more about that mysterious Ruth from "Shore Leave" which never was mentioned again in the series.
Another scene I found very touching and have re-read several times since is the scene between Kirk and McCoy after Bones realizes that they have something in common. This is just beautiful.
I had binge watched TOS for the very first time in my life only months prior, so with so much input at once I didn't remember all details. I was doing it backwards kinda. After reading the book I went back to watch "Where no man has gone before" and only then realized where "stack of books with legs" or Mitchell taking a dart for Kirk actually came from. This well fleshed out action scene was another highlight for me.
I also like the small twists and turns and extra insight in later years. For example the new ending you found for the episode "Naked Time". I thought it was something I just had forgotten as well, but no. Well, maybe they realized the opportunity once the credits were already rolling.
You did good, Mr. Goodman! Thank you for a wonderful read! I've recommended it to all my friends.
PS: I just learnt that it was also you that wrote that "Star Trek" episode of "Futurama". I had no idea. I love it!
I think it is very unfortunate that the info in the blurb on Amazon that Kirk was born on the Kelvin has spiked so much outrage in comments, obviously by people who did not even read the book. This negativity is not deserved and actually misleading.
I loved it from start till end. I loved especially the early years and the academy time. All those names had only been characters in a TV show so far - but with this book, they became real people to me. For example the relationship with Ben Finney and how his daughter came to her name. Or "seeing" the things Finnegan actually did. And I always had wanted to know more about that mysterious Ruth from "Shore Leave" which never was mentioned again in the series.
Another scene I found very touching and have re-read several times since is the scene between Kirk and McCoy after Bones realizes that they have something in common. This is just beautiful.
I had binge watched TOS for the very first time in my life only months prior, so with so much input at once I didn't remember all details. I was doing it backwards kinda. After reading the book I went back to watch "Where no man has gone before" and only then realized where "stack of books with legs" or Mitchell taking a dart for Kirk actually came from. This well fleshed out action scene was another highlight for me.
I also like the small twists and turns and extra insight in later years. For example the new ending you found for the episode "Naked Time". I thought it was something I just had forgotten as well, but no. Well, maybe they realized the opportunity once the credits were already rolling.
You did good, Mr. Goodman! Thank you for a wonderful read! I've recommended it to all my friends.
PS: I just learnt that it was also you that wrote that "Star Trek" episode of "Futurama". I had no idea. I love it!
Which frankly makes more sense to me. I rewatched "The Conscience of the King" just a couple of weeks ago, and it doesn't appear that Kirk had any idea that Kevin Riley had been on Tarsus IV until he finds out in the episode. And I agree with Christopher that young Kirk saving Riley's life there is a little too "small universe" syndrome.
I could've sworn that the Kirk/Riley Tarsus IV flashback appeared in A Flag Full of Stars instead of The Lost Years, though. Oh, well. Didn't the novel Sarek also have Sarek popping up on Tarsus IV? That place was popular!
It's the Shatner stories-- specifically Avenger-- that associates Sarek with Tarsus IV, I think.
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