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Star Trek Academy: Collision Course by William Shatner with Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
01/04/2008 . Source: Sue Davies 
pub: Pocket Books/Simon and Schuster. 452 page hardback. Price: £14.99 (UK), $25.00 (US), $28.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-1-4165-0396-5. Buy Star Trek Academy: Collision Course in the USA - or Buy Star Trek Academy: Collision Course in the UK  check out website: www.simonsays.co.uk
Once upon a time Captain James Tiberius Kirk was just a lad kicking off against the system. He's an angry young man. A rebel with what he thinks is a cause. He really doesn't like Starfleet. His father was a starship captain so what has caused young Kirk to move so far from his roots?
Spock, too, was a teenager once and as a half-Vulcan/half-human, he struggles to reconcile his characteristics and choose a path that will enable him to live up to his father's requirements as an emotion-controlled Vulcan.
How could these two possibly meet up before their tenure aboard the Starship Enterprise? Why would they boldly go where no man or Vulcan has gone before?
Well, why not? Everything about the Star Trek universe has been energetically milked to satisfy the seemingly insatiable demands of its fan base. There were few places left other than the teenage years of the eponymous heroes of the first TV series and a series of successful films.
When young Jim Kirk tries to prove his girl-friend innocent of complicity in a crime at the Starfleet Academy he thinks he is just being clever. His brother, Sam, has other motives and fears his shady contacts are able to make the car disappear but they want him to return the favour and are very interested in young Jim.
Spock is troubled to discover that thefts at the Vulcan Embassy have gone unpunished by his ambassador father, Sarek. He determines to discover for himself how the artefacts are being taken but this takes him directly on the course of Jim Kirk and when they meet...its murder. Well, actually not murder as such but a helter-skelter ride of action-based plot that manages to make sense.
This novel has been co-written by William Shatner and the Reece-Stevens' husband and wife collaborators. I feel they have successfully captured a fresh angle on the well-worn story. The plot is intriguing enough and it moves along at a good pace. The sub-plot that weaves through the main is sufficiently meaty to wrap the whole thing up in a substantial and rewarding sandwich.
'Collision Course' rather neatly pre-empts the 2009 'Star Trek' movie that will show the young team of Kirk, Spock, et al. By going even further into the pre-history, Shatner using this novel has cheekily put himself well and truly back in the picture. The new film is determined to exclude him due to the inconvenient fact of Kirk being killed of in 'Star Trek: Generations' but when has truth ever got in the way of a good old story?
Sue Davies
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