I felt like I had to write something about this… I know this won’t be read by ANYONE outside myself but that’s OK.

Fair warning–Here there be spoilers.

This book is some of the worst sci-fi trash I’ve ever read.

Ostensibly penned by Shatner himself, most of the people I’ve mentioned it to start with the same line: “Well, he didn’t really write it did he?”, implying ghostwriting or collaboration… you know, I thought that myself before I started reading, but afterwards I have no doubt it was him.  No one else could write Kirk quite like this while also turning the rest of the cast into bumbling idiots.

The basic premise is that we’re a few months out from the point where the movie Star Trek: Generations has ended.  Enterprise-D is being cut up for scrap and Kirk’s body is still buried on the planet, but soon to be moved to a more permanent resting place.

A mutinous group of Romulan’s have secretly allied with the Borg and using a mysterious device they’ve managed to not only re-animate Kirk’s months old corpse using Borg nanites, but perform a temporal-Katra transfer to restore Kirk’s mind from the moment before his death.

The Romulan is hell bent on Kirk’s destruction because Kirk is responsible for her grandfather’s death (see some TOS episode where they fight Romulan’s).  The Borg are hell bent on Picard’s destruction (or at least return to the collective) because he apparently unknowingly retains some linchpin bit of information from his time as Locutus that could take them all down.  They decide to get together by reanimating Kirk and programming him to assassinate Picard.  The book even questions the sanity of this plan a few times, but it’s brushed aside by showing us that this Romulan is performing her best Ahab impersonation (and the Borg basically don’t give a damn and are apparently largely inept and manipulatable despite their massive successes in conquering species after species across the galaxy).

The entire book writes about Kirk as though he’s a mythic god, complete with describing his “iron muscled forearms” and having him outwit pretty much everyone he deals with.  Just to express how far into the absurd this writing goes, Kirk defeats Worf in a bat’leth competition… WORF.  Also, to be clear, at no point do they ever insinuate that Kirk’s physical or mental abilities are being enhanced, actually quite the opposite they imply he’s fighting through constant pain caused by the nanites.

Every character used–and they pretty much just reuse our old favorites, as though there is no one else in Starfleet–is either written out of character, or as a worst cliche of their character.

Picard is written as an aging, and somewhat dopy, semi-coward.  Riker is written as a series of assertive, though not always well thought out, actions and one-liners.  140 year old McCoy might as well have “Dammit Jim” written in every 6-7 words.  The Borg are written as comically inept at times, as well being able to be manipulated easily with a few obvious logical arguments, or just plain old acting emotional.  Data is written as child-turned-adult comic relief.  Even Spock, who I think is arguably the most well written, is frequently forced into out of character dialog and actions.

The worst part is that the hook that originally brought me here–That the Borg’s origin is actually V’ger following its melding with Commander Decker at the end of Star Trek: The Motion Picture–turns out to be a “Oh by the way” sort of mention within the last 20-30 pages with no real depth.

The further I got into this book the more I realized that it’s written in the style of TOS episodes and movies–full of deus ex machina and contrived situations for the sole purpose of supporting one-liners or some cliched set of actions by a character.  It’s rife with “wait, why did this happen?” or “how could they have done that?” moments.  Your only choices are to stop reading, or suspend the analytical part of your brain that highlights the plot holes and enjoy the predictable, often groan-worthy, lines and scenarios.

In some ways that actually makes this book more endearing, but it also makes it frustrating because you don’t receive the depth you might have hoped for in most of the story points and you find yourself agonizing over dialog or actions that simply don’t fit the character.

As best I can determine, the reason this book exists is that Shatner was pissed by his limited role in Star Trek: Generations and luke warm, not quite-a-real-hero, death; so he decided to re-write that death by coming back to life as a combination action hero, master tactician, technology guru, and victim of circumstance.  He can best Worf in Klingon combat, he can beat up Picard, outwit Romulan’s and Borg, intuitively use 24th century technology against its own occupants despite his being a century out of date, and all this while saving the galaxy.

In conclusion, this is absolutely Star Trek schlock, but hell who am I to judge?  I’m sitting here bitching about a 20 year old Star Trek novel.  Go take it out of your local library and spend a few days reading it, it’s not like you have better things to do.

I’ll just leave you with a picture of the backcover of this book… no accolades or glowing reviews, just a huge ass picture of Shatner.

He also couldn’t resist filling the backcover with his gorgeous mug.