Book Review: "The Autobiography of James T. Kirk"

- by Leo Stableford, 18 September 2015

I have a nice tl;dr of this article. I have decided not to put that up front but to bury it in the text somewhere. This is because it is too nice a tl;dr. If I lead with it, I fear no one will bother to read the rest of this article.

I'm not a massive Trek fan, neither am I a Trek hater. I think, on balance, if anyone was placed to enjoy this book it would have to be me. I am not so familiar with the source that there would be no surprises. Also I am not bored by Trek, I like it fine in all its incarnations.

As it happens I am not that familiar with all but the highlights of Captain Kirk's illustrious career. This means that I have something to hold on to but I don't really know how the book should play out.

The first thing I notice is that fictional biographies are tricky. The charm and allure of a biography or autobiography is that a human life is not a story. In a story the events conform to a shape that permit a protagonist to be a hero. Life rarely affords us these conveniences.

Real people are contradictory, the real world is filled with chaos. A successful biography embraces both of these factors. In a great autobiography we can sense our own struggle. We are in a fight with the author, trying to discern the gleam of truth in the fog of perspective.

Also we can experience vicariously the bizarre feeling of history happening around the subject. When a regular person becomes involved in extraordinary events it is no narrative twist. That is history.

The Autobiography of James T. Kirk by David A. Goodman has none of this. His history is our speculative future. His development and maturation jibe in perfect harmony with events unfolding around him. We understand that he is a great man because the universe arranged itself around his need to be great.

There is no faulty narrator experience here. Oh, sure, there is a game attempt to speak in Kirk's voice. The problem is that all the internal conflicts, all the drama, all the chaos are a set up. None of it is the result of a single person caught in the maelstrom of a random real life. All the chaos that exists is the remains of dozens of writers all trying to leave their mark on the character.

So, the actual narrative ends up being underwhelming. Over sixty per cent of the book consists of potted summaries of Classic Trek episodes or movies. In the end all you have is something that screams "pointless cash in". (There, that's the tldr, in all its glory.)

The potted summaries of some of Trek's hits (not even the greatest ones) are told from Kirk's point of view. This works very hard not to be tiresome or irritating. Not having watched classic Trek for some time, it filled me with a desire to go back and watch those episodes. I caught a couple. Watching them as they happened was much more satisfying than the book versions. Six hundred word summaries can't be that gripping. To get into more depth risked making the book into a tortuous multi-volume affair.

I have to say the way the autobiography deals with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier is a pretty neat meta-moment. The book is well written. It tries its best to add value prior to Kirk becoming, you know, Captain Kirk. At the point where the rest of the story is also told through film and television the work is at its most pointless. It tries to be punchy and economical but in the end it just comes off as underwritten.

Despite its best efforts the book has precisely zero real audience. Sure it's a must have for Star Trek superfans, but so would a compendium of Enterprise cargo manifests. At least discovering what was in the cargo bay on what stardate would be original fiction.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend The Autobiography of Captain James T. Kirk. It does not surprise, it does not deepen appreciation. All it does is remind you that there's some cool TV and movies you could be watching instead.

Which is something, I suppose.


Kirk fans can pick up the Captain's autobiography on the Titan Books website!

Tagged: books, Reviews.

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