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Star Trek: Crucible Kirk: The Star Of Every Wandering by David R. George III
01/10/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Simon and Schuster. 294 page paperback. Price: £ 6.99 (UK), $ 7.99 (US), $ 9.99 (CAN). ISBN: 978-0-7434-9170-9. Buy Star Trek: Crucible Kirk: The Star Of Every Wandering in the USA - or Buy Star Trek: Crucible Kirk: The Star Of Every Wandering in the UK  check out website: www.simonsays.co.uk
This is the third part of a trilogy which looks at the effects on those involved in 'The City On The Edge Of Forever', an original series episode by Harlan Ellison. McCoy featured in the first book and it was a winner for lovers of good ol' Deep south U.S.A. fiction. The second book was about Spock and was good for those who enjoy things Vulcan, including me. Here Kirk is the focus.
The story begins with the events of the film 'Generations' when Captain Kirk supposedly died. He did not, however. Somehow he is caught up once more in the bloody awful Nexus - surely the worst invention in Trek - and lives on. He comes out into the real world but there are two of him somehow. 'Somehow' is a word you have to use a lot with the Nexus because anything can happen with it, in it or through it. This is what makes it awful. Anyway, two chronometrically-charged Kirks at different points in time cause some kind of destructive energy to sweep through that section of the galaxy and destroy everything. Millions of lives are lost. Kirk or Kirks have to save the day. One of them must go. One Kirk uses the Nexus somehow to send the other Kirk off to the Guardian of Forever five zillion years in the past so that he can use it to stop the original Kirk helping Picard save the galaxy. I confess that I found the plot confusing.
I also found the writing flawed in places. For long stretches of the book, the author is telling us what Kirk is doing and thinking. No one else is there. So the text will say that 'Kirk did this' and then 'he did that.' However, instead of persisting with the second person singular pronoun to describe our protagonist ie 'he'- the author reverts back every three sentences to saying 'Kirk'. Is this to remind very dull readers who may have forgotten, two whole sentences later, who 'he' is? Surely once Kirk is established as the only bloke around 'he' should suffice for a while. Anyone who forgets the main characters name before the paragraph is finished isn't going to understand the plot anyway. I didn't.
Love is a big feature, of course. The true, true love that Jim felt for Edith, who was the love of his life. On telly, Jim chased a different bit of skirt every two weeks but never mind that for now. Edith was 'The One.' He slept with her, it is revealed, even though he knew she was doomed. This is a new angle on the time travel story - safe sex. Oh woe! Oh Shakespearean Tragedy! Oh emergency contraception with a big truck! (I jest, she wasn't pregnant.) Fiction is interesting when the protagonist struggles against overwhelming odds with just his own talents. He can be pretty talented but not omniscient or else there is no drama. In this story, Kirk is equipped with the Nexus which lets a chap do anything he wants. The Nexus is a fantasy idea, not Science Fiction. Furthermore, he also has the Guardian of Forever so he can go anywhere in time and correct his mistakes. These god-like tools give the protagonist too much power. You have to be clever to use them, I suppose, but there is no real struggle.
Basically, this is a time-traveller-goes-back-and-sorts-things-out story, like all those 'Back To The Future' films. Robert Heinlein may not have started this sub-genre but with the story 'By His Bootstraps' he wrote, according to editor John Campbell, Jr., 'the first all-out frank attack on the circle of time story...a magnificent idea, worked out beautifully.' However, the last word on this type of thing should surely go to the first Grand Master of Science Fiction himself. He said of his own story that it was 'hack - a neat trick, sure, but no more than a neat trick. Cotton candy.'
Eamonn Murphy
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