Los Angeles - He’s a hero and he’s great at his job, but Star Trek’s Captain Kirk did abandon his son.
That’s one of the conclusions of author and TV writer David A Goodman in a first-of-its-kind book for a Star Trek character that imagines new details about the life of the man who captained the starship Enterprise.
Often taking one-line references from episodes of the iconic TV and movie science fiction franchise and building entire storylines, Goodman paints Kirk as a driven, sometimes insecure, absent father, a man who “left his son, for his job” yet was destined to be a Starfleet hero.
“Almost everything that’s new came out of something that we already were familiar with,” Goodman said.
The Autobiography of James T Kirk – The Story Of Starfleet’s Greatest Captain was published by Titan Books – 49 years to the day after Star Trek premiered on television in 1966.
It comes with illustrations, including Kirk’s Starfleet Academy class graduation photo, and an unsent letter he penned to his son.
Fan fiction plays a popular role in the Star Trek universe and interest has been building since actor William Shatner, the best-known embodiment of Kirk, appeared at July’s Comic-Con International with Goodman and read excerpts from the book.
A Shatner-signed copy of the book is on the internet selling for $150 (R2 087).
The book also tells how Dr McCoy got the nickname “Bones” and why Kirk would regret saving history “for the rest of my life”. Reuters