This is a story of teen-aged Jimmy Kirk and how he ended up on the path to becoming Starfleet captain and legend James Tiberius Kirk. There's at least one other Star Trek novel which follows this same premise, though that story is very different. Yet, however many permutations of young!Kirk we get (I know of three: this novel, Diane Carey's Best Destiny, and Star Trek XI), there's one constant: Kirk is always portrayed as a troubled, rebellious, smart kid who only ends up on his way to greatness because an honest, weather-worn Good Man (TM) takes an interest him. I'm okay with that as a cultural myth for everyone's favorite captain of the Enterprise, but I wonder where it comes from, as it seems to be in direct conflict with canon (Kirk tells Bones, in the episode "Shore Leave," that he was studious and "positively grim" as a first-year cadet--hardly the image of a just reined-in trouble-maker). Anyroad, point being that this is a fun vision of Kirk as a teenager. There's a plot, and it holds together alright, but the point of it (and the book) is to let Jimmy Kirk run around being troubled and smart and charming. This it does well. All kinds of points, too, for Kirk's interactions with a young Spock; for the appearances of Sam and George Kirk, and Finnegan and Mallory; and especially for the exploration of what happened to a fourteen-year-old Kirk on Tarsus IV and how those events shaped him afterward. ( )

_Collision Course_ is my first foray into the world of Star Trek novels and I wasn't sure what to expect. As it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised. I found this continuity-bending prequel an enjoyable adventure, and it had a page-turning plot. I didn't want to put it down. Kirk and Spock's characters were wonderfully written (as one might expect from William Shatner!) and I immediately liked both of them.

My one serious complaint has nothing to do with Star Trek continuity (I can't get nitpicky about things like that in a fictional universe this immense - and aren't the novels not considered canon anyway?) No, my only real complaint is that it would have been nice to have at least one half-ways decent female character. I know Kirk and Spock are the stars, but did EVERY girl in the story have to exist solely as one-dimensional (and rather stupid) love interest for one of the male characters? Kirk's girlfriend is a bland, naive goody-goody. Even the girl villains are only bad because they're smitten with the evil male villains. and too stupid to realize they are being used. *yawn*

But even that wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying this one. Great adventure, an exciting plot, star ships, and the first meetings of a young Kirk and Spock. I give it 3/5 and will definitely pick up the next in the _Star Trek Academy_ series if William Shatner writes it. ( )

Go back in time to a James T Kirk is a...Well, he's a young punk. And Spock is struggling through an identity crisis of who he is - Vulcan or human. Throw them together and join old friends 20 years before you knew them.

Shatner's book, Collision Course, defies other Star Trek books (and most likely the movie coming out) and seeks to show Spock and Kirk in their first meeting. I'm not a big Star Trek book fan. In fact, this is the first I've ever read. But I think I've seen all the episodes. That is an advantage here, because I can revel in Shatner putting on a character he knows better than anyone else. This is not literary classic time here, folks, but a guilty pleasure. Character development? Pshaw. Good writing? Go read Edgar Sawtelle. This is merely FUN, with a capital F-U-N.

The danger of a book like this, and Shatner does go off the rails, is a loose plot with deus ex machina. There are stretches of the book where the author seeks to delve into his television character more deeply or tries to psychoanalyze Spock. Good in small amounts, Shatner risks going too far. Likewise, he introduces elements that go beyond setting aside reality. He has a group of a few raw cadets steal a most advanced starship. Something straight out of...the third movie, but done by the characters of the tb show after years doing their jobs.

So..do you like a ride? Did you grow up watching Star Trek but set it aside? Can you forgive an oldish man his literary jaunt to his past, with loads of "Huh? He can't have really meant that, could he?" moments? Then read it. It's fun, it's light, and you get the sense that William Shatner is not ready to be done being Captain Kirk. ( )

A dozen or so years ago, William Shatner took the Star Trek publishing world by storm when he wrote the Ashes of Eden. A story about Kirk, told by the man who brought Captain James T. Kirk to life for so many years was must reading for this Star Trek fan.

That must have extended to a lot of other fans because sales were good enough to bring about a second and then a third novel. Then a new trilogy and another one after that, creating what is referred to in the Trek fiction universe as "The Shatnerverse."

In the Shatnervise, the entire universe revolves around James T. Kirk. And while I'm a huge Kirk fan, I can't necessarily say this is a good thing. In Shatner's Trek-world view, nothing can be done, no evil can be defeated without the manliness that is Kirk. As each novel has gone along, the line between Kirk and Shatner has slowly blurred to the piont that you can't really tell any more whether Shatner is making up adventures for himself or his most famous role.

Which all brings us to the latest installment from Shatner. This time, instead of going forward, we go backward to the earliest days of James T. Kirk and his admission to Starfleet Acadamy.

Now, let me preface this by saying that if you're a Trek continuity geek, you need to just put this book down and walk away. I enjoy continuity but I'm not as much a slave to it as some. I can enjoy a good story that has a few continuity violations. That said, this one made my head hurt with the number of liberties taken with Trek canon. It's hard to imagine how co-authors Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens could help write this without at least asking, "No really, Bill. You want to do that?"

The story postulates that Kirk and Spock met as young men on Earth. Both are at the 23rd Century version of a brothel when they meet. Spock is there, selling Vulcan artifacts under the table to expose a conspiracy in the Vulcan embassy and Kirk is there hiding from the law. Seems the Kirk we meet here at 17 is pretty much your standard young punk who hates everything to do with Starfleet. Shatner tries to explain this by flashing back to Kirk's experiences at the hands of Kodos the Executioner.

Kirk catches the attention of some mysterious figure in Starfleet and is blackmailed into joining Starfleet Acadamy. Yes, you read that right--blackmailed into joining. But unfortunately, this is not the most absurd plot twist we're asked to believe. As the story goes along, we find out that Kirk's on the trail of a conspiracy that just happens to cross paths with the conspiracy Spock is unravelling. Suddenly, civilization as we know it is threatened and only Kirk and Spock can save us all--again.

The final half of this book found me flipping from page to page, my jaw dropping further and futher in disbelief at the absurd things Shatner was coming up with for these characters to do. All of this might have been better had these characters acted anything like the Kirk and Spock we know from any Star Trek series...but unfortunately, this is Kirk and Spock in name only.

I'm sure my neighbors loved the sound of the book repeatedly hitting the wall as I threw it across the room. And I'm sure I entertained the people at the gym as I kept shaking my head, muttering "You're kidding" as I read the final few chapters working out on the treadmill.

This is, without a doubt, one of the worst examples of Trek fiction out there. Don't waste your money or your time on it. ( )