Best Destiny

The reviews for this Star Trek novel are mostly positive, but I'm afraid the plot and characterisations didn't work for me at all. Where was the humour, the banter, the adventure? Between a snotty teenage Kirk and a miserable middle-aged Kirk, I was almost bored to tears. And why, why must Kirk have been a terrible teen in order to become a first rate captain? Couldn't he just have been inspired by his father and awed by the concept of travelling through space? I got the impression from the series that Kirk had always been an intelligent man and an idealist, and Starfleet gave him a way to channel his natural talents - Gary Mitchell called him a 'stack of books with legs' after all - yet in this version, he's little more than an show more ignorant punk until a(nother) life and death voyage into space with his father sets him straight. Not strictly out of character, although Kirk suffers from yet another dumbing down, but done to death in a coming of age story.

Kevin the teenager aside, the pacing is incredibly slow, only uniting past and (future) present in the last few chapters, and the secondary characters are clunkier than the pirate ship that knocks the Starfleet shuttle off course. I mean, come on, even for Star Trek, the faux-Aussie captain and his blockheaded second in command are laughably bad, and then we're supposed to take Kirk's own adolescent nemesis Roy seriously? He needs a smack upside the head and/or counselling (same for Kirk), not building up into an evil genius.

On the technical side, even the writing failed to impress. Some of the purple prose would be more suited to a romance novel - Kirk's father has 'a flop of argumentative sienna shag' instead of unruly red hair, and Kirk's 'antique gold eyes' burn with 'taupe fire'. The foreshadowing is also rather clumsy, with young Kirk slowly getting the message that his father and Robert April are big, brave pioneers making the uncharted galaxy safe for future generations, etc. I'm not sure that the author(s) really like Captain Kirk, which could explain why they were rubbing me up the wrong way throughout (Spock would not have made a better captain), but then why choose to write a backstory for his character?

Plodding and pretentious, Diane Carey's novel misses the charm of the original series, and turns young 'Jimmy' Kirk into a teenage nightmare. show less

This is one of my favorite Star Trek novels, particularly for its focus on my favorite Star Trek Character, James T. Kirk as a teen, and his relationship with his father. It's a good extrapolation of what the young Kirk might have been like--the flaws and virtues that came out in the man and leader, often flip sides of the same quality. (“Jimmy,” he asked, “when is it going to dawn on you that rules exist for a reason?" Lines said after an incident that would definitely hammer down the lesson. Yet later as an adult it often would be Kirk's refusal to go by the rule book that would be winning--and that's shown here too.) It's well-written, with lines I still remember decades later.

There's much to like here, but it's a curiously old-fashioned book just in the way that it treats Kirk's nemesis - there's a scene where Starfleet beats him up to get information out of him (!!!!) and scenes where Kirk compares Starfleet to American pioneers in a purely positive way (!!!!!), bringing "civilization" to the galaxy. To be honest, I found these aspects to kind of overshadow the other parts of the book, which were good, because so much of the story was about morality, Jim Kirk growing up to be a good guy, etc. Having these old-fashioned views at the heart of the story made it hard for me to fully commit and embrace it.

One might think that James Kirk had been groomed to greatness in Star Fleet from the beginning, and that he always knew he would captain a starship. Not so. This book, jumping between the "present" and Kirk's past as a teenager, shows his inauspicious beginnings as a surly, rebellious juvenile delinquent. It also shows the developments in his relationship with his father. Diane Carey has always been one of the best Star Trek writers at expanding upon established character traits in plausible yet unforeseen ways, and this book is no exception.

Another good Star Trek entry by Diane Carey