Spoilers The Autobiography of James T. Kirk - announcement and reviews

[hbquikcomjamesl]

And to cite an instance where an omission is a good thing, consider that Kirk reveals how he managed to hack the Kobayashi Maru (in a manner that foreshadows something else getting hacked), but omits the details of how the hack actually worked (I believe there's more than one version of that story, in the Prime universe alone, including the one in which he gave himself "a reputation" with the Klingons, triggered by his middle name).

Nice touch, introducing us to the "rodent-things on Dimorus" in detail. Hmm: Memory Beta says that My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise also brought up the subject, but I don't remember anything about it.

 

[Christopher]

And to cite an instance where an omission is a good thing, consider that Kirk reveals how he managed to hack the Kobayashi Maru (in a manner that foreshadows something else getting hacked), but omits the details of how the hack actually worked (I believe there's more than one version of that story, in the Prime universe alone, including the one in which he gave himself "a reputation" with the Klingons, triggered by his middle name).

That's the version from Julia Ecklar's The Kobayashi Maru (also used by Howard Weinstein in DC's "Star-Crossed" storyline). But it isn't triggered by his middle name -- he introduces himself as "Captain James T. Kirk" and the Klingons go "The Captain Kirk?" and buckle under immediately.

The other version is Kevin Lauderdale's "A Test of Character" in Strange New Worlds VII, in which Kirk simply removes the programming that guarantees defeat and makes it a fair contest. I like that one better, because he doesn't really cheat in a way that guarantees victory, he just makes the computer stop cheating so that it's possible to win.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Nice touch, introducing us to the "rodent-things on Dimorus" in detail. Hmm: Memory Beta says that My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise also brought up the subject, but I don't remember anything about it.

John Byrne also presented a version of the rodent-things on Dimorus in the 2013 Star Trek Annual story "Strange New Worlds" that led to his current New Visions series. It was early in Kirk's time on the Enterprise there.

 

[Stevil2001]

Nice touch, introducing us to the "rodent-things on Dimorus" in detail. Hmm: Memory Beta says that My Brother's Keeper: Enterprise also brought up the subject, but I don't remember anything about it.

I don't think we see them in Enterprise; it's just a thing that happened shortly before the novel begins.

 

[Christopher]

A version of the Dimorus encounter is seen in DC's Star Trek Vol. 2 #64 by Kevin Ryan. I don't think it's consistent with the Brother's Keeper version.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

With the possible exception of the Abramsverse-origin piece, Countdown, (which I haven't actually bought, only thumbed through briefly in B&N), I regard comic books as being, strictly in terms of the level on which they are "in continuity," at least a step down from Mission to Horatius and Spock Must Die. (And most of the old Gold Key ones, several steps down.)

Regardless of how good or how bad the story and art are.

And the only reason I make an exception for Countdown is because it's the only in-universe explanation I've seen for the existence of the Abramsverse.

I'm now past the block of color plates, and it's improving.

I think the reason why I take exception to major continuity contradictions is that if they contradict something I clearly remember from an earlier work (even if I can't recall the exact details, like the password for Kirk's hack being "James T. Kirk" rather than "Tiberius", and even if I can't remember the exact opus whence the recollection came), they tend to jolt one out of the story.

(Speaking of recollections I can't actually place, I have a clear recollection of a Mind Sifter reference that I can't place with a specific opus (and neither can Memory Beta), a description of the machine that very specifically included leather straps. But that's neither here nor there.)

 

[Idran]

With the possible exception of the Abramsverse-origin piece, Countdown, (which I haven't actually bought, only thumbed through briefly in B&N), I regard comic books as being, strictly in terms of the level on which they are "in continuity," at least a step down from Mission to Horatius and Spock Must Die. (And most of the old Gold Key ones, several steps down.)

Regardless of how good or how bad the story and art are.

Why's that, out of curiosity?

 

[Christopher]

With the possible exception of the Abramsverse-origin piece, Countdown, (which I haven't actually bought, only thumbed through briefly in B&N), I regard comic books as being, strictly in terms of the level on which they are "in continuity," at least a step down from Mission to Horatius and Spock Must Die. (And most of the old Gold Key ones, several steps down.)

Well, that's a totally arbitrary attitude. Comics are a medium, not a genre. If there's a story in the comics that's well-done and fits continuity, how does it make sense to disregard it just because of the way the story is told? Heck, if anything, comics are closer to the original onscreen format of Star Trek than prose books are, because comics and film/TV both tell stories primarily with images and dialogue, and because films are often planned out with storyboards, which are virtually like comic books in their own right. Which is probably why there's more crossover between screenwriters and comics writers than between screenwriters and novelists.

I think the reason why I take exception to major continuity contradictions is that if they contradict something I clearly remember from an earlier work (even if I can't recall the exact details, like the password for Kirk's hack being "James T. Kirk" rather than "Tiberius", and even if I can't remember the exact opus whence the recollection came), they tend to jolt one out of the story.

There is no password. He programs the simulation's Klingons to recognize his name and be so intimidated by it that they back down from the fight.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

With the possible exception of the Abramsverse-origin piece, Countdown, (which I haven't actually bought, only thumbed through briefly in B&N), I regard comic books as being, strictly in terms of the level on which they are "in continuity," at least a step down from Mission to Horatius and Spock Must Die. (And most of the old Gold Key ones, several steps down.)

Well, that's a totally arbitrary attitude. Comics are a medium, not a genre. If there's a story in the comics that's well-done and fits continuity, how does it make sense to disregard it just because of the way the story is told? Heck, if anything, comics are closer to the original onscreen format of Star Trek than prose books are, because comics and film/TV both tell stories primarily with images and dialogue, and because films are often planned out with storyboards, which are virtually like comic books in their own right. Which is probably why there's more crossover between screenwriters and comics writers than between screenwriters and novelists.

Besides, all Trek tie-in fiction has exactly the same official bearing on onscreen Trek: none. Occasionally something like a name introduced in a novel (Hikaru, Nyota, George Samuel & Winona Kirk) will catch on, but that's much more the exception than the rule. So really, the novels, don't "matter" any more than the comics, and vice-versa.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Finished it last night.

All in all, if there were a poll on this thread, I'd have given this opus an "above average."

I think it probably would have been better if it had been published through S&S, and had the benefit of experienced ST editors seeing and pointing out things that might throw fans out of the story.

 

[Paradise City]

My interpretation of the Vulcan princess is she is one of the highest rsnked Kolinahru. She may have not been so when she bonded with Sarek, that could have come later.

Yeah, "princess" might just be a translation issue, meaning Sarek's first wife was just a high-ranking noble. There's no doubt that Vulcan has nobility. Perhaps Spock and Sarek both qualify as Vulcan princes.

Germany had nobles as Princes. For example Prince Otto von Bismarck. He was Chancellor that was made a prinz but never a royal.

 

[Christopher]

There's no doubt that Vulcan has nobility. Perhaps Spock and Sarek both qualify as Vulcan princes.

Okay... Now I've got this mental image stuck in my head of Spock and Sarek singing that "Princes of the Universe" Queen song from Highlander.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Thank heaven (1) I've never seen Highlander, and (2) I'm not a Queen fan, and have never even heard of that particular song.

Hmm. Here's a crazy thought: Queen sharing a stage with the a capella group, The King's Singers.

 

[Christopher]

^I'm not a Queen fan either, nor a Highlander fan, for that matter, but the song is a hell of an earworm.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I finished it a couple of nights ago and absolutely LOVED it. David did another tremendous job and I loved all the easter eggs and nods included. Can't wait for more of these types of books in the future hopefully.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

^I'm not a Queen fan either, nor a Highlander fan, for that matter, but the song is a hell of an earworm.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRRREEEEEEE we aaaaare... Born to be Kings, We're the Princes of the UUUUUUUUUUUniverse..."

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

One other thing that jumped out at me about the present opus: the militantly atheist point of view was, if anything, even more obnoxious than Diane Carey's tendency to put the Libertarian Party line in characters' mouths (particularly those of Piper and Sarda).

Goodman's Kirk tended to sound more like Madalyn Murray O'Hair than like the Kirk we know, particularly in characterizing Christians (and by extension, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, and so forth) as being no different from primitive pagan animists (or from followers of some "cargo cult").

 

[DavidAGoodman]

hbquikcomjamesl, I didn't think I had portrayed Kirk as being "militantly atheist". In fact, there was one moment where I was playing against that: I have him say "I don't believe in angels," and then one walks down the stairs, and then he refers to her as "The angel came down the stairs.." implying I thought that maybe he had reconsidered his lack of belief, that Edith was "heaven sent". But since it was lost not only on you but other readers, it wasn't clear enough.

 

[DavidAGoodman]

And to cite an instance where an omission is a good thing, consider that Kirk reveals how he managed to hack the Kobayashi Maru (in a manner that foreshadows something else getting hacked), but omits the details of how the hack actually worked (I believe there's more than one version of that story, in the Prime universe alone, including the one in which he gave himself "a reputation" with the Klingons, triggered by his middle name).

Nice touch, introducing us to the "rodent-things on Dimorus" in detail.

Thanks!

 

[DavidAGoodman]

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 read "The Lost Years" when it came but didn't remember about Kirk saving Riley's life, but I would consider that in violation of canon: it's clear in Conscience of the King that Kirk didn't know Riley was on Tarsus IV until the computer tells him. He knew Riley well by that point; he'd served on the bridge as a navigator. though I love Dillard's books, I would take the view he would've remembered saving his life on Tarsus IV, so the computer in that episode wouldn't have to tell Kirk that Riley was there.