Star Trek: The Academy: Collision Course Book

This was an extremely well-written book, a very enjoyable read with good characterizations, pacing, and plot. And there are definitely some good connection points between it and the established Star Trek background story. But much of the storyline simply doesn't seem to work in terms of the established character histories, so it's best to pretend that it is a story from some alternate timeline, like the new movie series separate from the original series but separate from that as well, rather than trying to accept it as canonical. If one does that, it's great fun and a wild ride, but if one tries to fit it into the strictly original, canonical timeline, it falls flat on several counts.

For one thing, the personality of young Jimmy Kirk, while not completely out of character, seems more like the Jim Kirk in the new movie series than the impression that we've always had of the background for the character from the original series; granted, attempts are made to explain away that wildness and lack of respect for authority as traumatic remnants of his experiences on Tarsus IV under governor Kodos. And such a reation to such a traumatic set of events would certainly not be unreasonable, but in no discussion of Kirk's past at any point in the series do we ever hear any hint that such was actually ever the personality of young Jimmy Kirk. Further, if he HAD been like that, and Spock had known him then, it seems hard to imagine that it would never have come up in conversation during the series. Nor does it seem plausible that Spock is only two years older than Kirk; I've seen other places (including the new movie series) where it is claimed that they are that close to contemporaries, but I find it extremely implausible. Given the greater lifespan of Vulcans, it seems likely that Spock is older than that, and unlikely that he and Kirk would have been at the academy together. Further, it seems implausible that if Kirk WAS that severely traumatized by his experiences on Tarsus IV, to the extent that he became such a rebel-without-a-cause smartass wiseguy and hater of all things Starfleet, and spent three years being that person, that he could have turned himself around/been turned around so totally and so quickly as to leave no trace of it on his academy record, and any trace of that sort of attitude would have left him a significantly less respected member of Starfleet, to the point where he would have become the youngest ever promoted to captain in the history of the fleet. Bureaucracies (even apparently non-hidebound bureaucracies, like Starfleet is supposed to be) do not rapidly promote smartasses who hate authority, no matter how talented they are.

Yes, if this was the character's background, it would explain his willingness to flout the rules on many occasions in the series. And while he certainly has a tendency to be more concerned with what's right than the regulations, I don't see him as being THIS much of a rebel at seventeen.

Still, the explanation of the origin of the dispute between Spock and his father that we saw in "Journey to Babel" worked for me, at least mostly. But it did seem to me that his early experiences with Kirk in this book, if they had actually happened, would have left Spock much less stiff than we saw him in the early episodes in the series; his integration of his human and vulcan sides would have been more advanced than we saw if it had started as early as this.

So all in all, as a story that I don't try to fit in to the established Star Trek history, either in the original series of the new movies, this book is worth five stars. But I would only give it three if I wasn't willing to grant it the "alternate timeline" excuse.