I said to myself the other day, “Self why haven’t you done any book reviews lately?” I answered myself, “Well because no one reads them so why bother.” So I had to reassure myself, “It isn’t all about the hits, plus authors enjoy it when you promote their books, and you wouldn’t want people to think you have stopped reading!” So here we go! The book du jour is The Autobiography of James T. Kirk by David A. Goodman.
As you can probably guess by the title the book follows the life and times of James T Kirk. It does its best to try and fill in the gaps about everyone’s favorite Starfleet Captain. That way it makes sense when a crazy guy in his crew frames him for murder, or when his son shows up in the Wrath of Khan. That being said it mostly works on those gaps, so if you haven’t seen Star Trek: The Original Series or the original cast Star Trek movies it will not work as well. Though if you haven’t seen The Original Series or the Star Trek movies why are you reading an autobiography of a fictional person that was featured in those works?
If you have done the required viewing this book is a lot of fun. It makes Kirk feel more like a real person. It also makes me wish that Star Trek would have been more serialized. That way we could have seen all the characters more fleshed out while watching what happened week to week. Who knows maybe the new series will be.
If you are a Star Trek superfan this book is a must read. Then again you have probably already read it, but if you are more of a casual Star Trek fan like me, I still think it is worth a look. It is a well written and fun look at an amazing fictional person that influenced a lot of lives. I hope that David A. Goodman does Spock next.