I enjoyed the humor and the "back story" proposed by this novel. I really laughed over the final few chapters. There's a moral .. but it would ruin the tale to tell it. Also I do suspect we have some Section 31 in this book as well, even if it is not named as such.
Original reading: Read from December 12 to 13, 2010 ( )

I needed something a bit frivolous to read because I've been inundated with technical reading and I've been on a history/biography kick lately.

Not sure if this fits with Star Trek cannon but it was a reasonbly fun ride. ( )

I'm not a big fan of Shatner the man, but he had the sense to pick excellent co-writers and to make sure they got credited. Judith and Gar Reeves- Stevens have written some of the best Trek fiction out there.

This is a very enjoyable story that fits seamlessly in to Classic Trek continuity. ( )

I downloaded William Shatner's novel early this year, in the first flush of my reinvigorated Star Trek crush, and took a year plucking up the courage to test the author(s) narrative flair. Whatever the arrangement between Shatner and his ghost writers, this is a readable addition to the many and multiform range of ST novels, paying fan service to 'Spirk' and Tarsus IV, and with a guest appearance from the Enterprise herself, but I was hardly blown away. The plot is similar to the rebooted movie version of the original series, with a plucky, rebellious Kirk fighting his Starfleet destiny and meeting up with Spock in his teens, and Shatner still has an intuitive sense of his iconic character, yet I still prefer the implied canonical backstory of the show over this teen adventure. I'm not exactly devastated that parts two and three of the planned trilogy never came about! ( )

Most of William Shatner's other Star Trek novels are written in the same pretentiously grandiose staccato as his acting style. But this one actually isn't badly written; my speculation is that by this time Shatner's co-writers have wrested more creative input from him. I found the storyline intriguing also, being a prequel that shows how a young Kirk and Spock (17 and 19, respectively), both dealing with teen and parental angst, reluctantly join forces (their first meeting) to thwart an attempt by Kodos the Executioner to steal dilithium from Starfleet. The Reeves-Stevens creative team has a nice touch for bringing in obscure references to the Star Trak literary canon without beating the reader over the head with their Trekky acumen. ( )