The Autobiography of James T. Kirk

I liked this account, as JJ Abrams has taken some creative left turns with the characters. I wished the author could have written the book longer to delve deeper into Kirk's character. Or maybe that was the idea to show you Kirk wasn't the deepest emotionally......

I love anything relating to Star Trek. This book uses the shows as an autobiography of Kirk's diary. If you like the original Star Wars Series, you will like the book, mostly as just as a reminder of the series. I miss the series. Time stands still for them and not for us.

Lots of new information on the captain. It includes highlights from his life in the TV series and all the movies with added info to fill in the gaps before the TV series and after the movies. I enjoyed it.

This book provides a new perspective to the iconic Captain Kirk. The reader enjoys a deeper backstory of Kirk and other Star Trek characters as presented from Kirk's perspective. It humanized Kirk and gives a depth of character and reality that tv or the movies could not give.

This is a great story, well written it flowed nicely. I think the book could easily have been twice as long. I would have liked to read more. I hope the author will write a story like this on Dr.McCoy!

This story brought you even closer to an already great character! The sequence of the time line presented stayed true the original series, while introducing you to new insights about the origins of James T. Kirk. Nicely done!

I was expecting a book with a straightforward narrative recounting James Kirk's life from his own perspective. Instead, I found the story of Kirk's life told through a series of nostalgic vignettes that often read like summaries of Star Trek episodes and movies.

Throughout the book I had a difficult time hearing the voice of the James T. Kirk I knew as brought to life by William Shatner. I actually felt more at ease imagining Chris Pine narrating the prose in my head.

To his credit, I think Goodman captured the voices of Spock and McCoy much more accurately. But the book isn't about them.

Still, it was a pleasant enough stroll down memory lane.

And Goldman's nod to the real world teacher who with other members of the Challenger's crew "slipped the surly bonds of heart to touch the face of God" brought a tear to my eye.

Many of the classic episodes are covered, at least those that figure into the associations with the events from the movies, and a few others that help to connect tidbits of Kirk’s personal life. Even though there is not a lot of new material here, the connections made by inference are extremely well done, and only the most die-hard fan will be irked by the occasional incorrect reference. I found it all very enjoyable and a great source of relaxation.

The Captain’s perspective of the events depicted in the movies are much more interesting and delve deeper into his personality than those from the television series. This was my most favorite part of the book, and I absolutely adored the creative background painted for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. The book concludes with some fun photos from Kirk’s life and a very sincere epilogue written by Spock.

As is typical with such a delightful reading experience, my only complaint was the brevity; it could have been twice as long and still held my attention.

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The book was a lot better than I originally thought. The thing I like about books are the background emotions of the characters, here namely James Kirk. William Shatner has done an excellent job developing Kirk as did Leonard Nimoy for Spock along with the other characters if you are a Trekie! The book expresses the emotions of Kirk, happiness, sadness, regrets, arrogance and the self reliance of that arrogance. Being in my late 50's, I can identify with that. I have some negative feelings but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. (SPOILER) Christopher Pike does not follow in line with The Cage episode which was originally the pilot episode for the show.

Effectively the book fills in the gaps, tells us about certain other characters, some never mentioned previously, and shows how Kirk became the man he was. Only thing I found annoying is the authors use of words I may or may not have heard before but hey, I looked them up and expanded my vocabulary. High recommend this book.

Story of Star Trek from Kirk's POV, wonderful background, with a theme of conflict between family and ship and a hint of resolution of this conflict toward the end. I'd have liked a bit more than summary of some of the things; some seemed to go a bit fast, but I suppose if you want the whole thing you can watch an episode.

This book gives a great deal of backstory to Kirk's character, fleshing out just about every bit of history we gather from the original series, the first six films, and (surprisingly) the first J.J. Abrams' film.

I highly recommend this book for fans of Star Trek. It is a fun and, sometimes poignant, examination of the life of everyone's favorite starship captain. The author has done a very good job of weaving the various storylines from the original series into a cohesive biographical timeline by highlighting some of the best episodes of the original show. This is an impressive task considering that the episodes were all written by several different people.

It should be noted that, contrary to the claims of other reviewers, this is indeed based on the original series rather than the recent "reboot" films.

If there is any criticism it is that the story does seem a little rushed toward the end. Of course most good stories leave the reader wanting more so perhaps its brevity is a virtue.

All in all this is a very enjoyable, fun read for fans of the series.