Best destiny - BookWyrm

336 pages

English language

Published Jan. 6, 1993 by Pocket Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-671-85089-0
OCLC Number:: 29205698

(2 reviews)

As James T. Kirk prepares to retire from a long and illustrious Starfleet career, events in a distant part of the Federation draw him back to a part of the galaxy he had last visited as a young man—a mysterious world called Faramond whose name takes Kirk on a journey back to his youth. At sixteen, Kirk is troubled, estranged from his father, and has a bleak future. However, a trip into space with Kirk's father George and Starfleet's legendary Captain Robert April changes James Kirk's life forever, when a simple voyage becomes a deadly trap. Soon, Kirk and his father find themselves fighting for their lives against a vicious and powerful enemy. Before the voyage ends, father and son will face life and death together, and James T. Kirk will get a glimpse of the future and his own best destiny...

7 editions

Lois reviewed Best Destiny by Diane Carey

Review of 'Best Destiny' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This was interesting - we see teenage, moody, pain in the ass Jimmy Kirk (just like in the reboot Trek movie), but with his father. George Kirk takes him on a mission that happens to have him see and go on board the newly built USS Enterprise, commanded by Robert April. And it's hardly a spoiler to say that stuff goes wrong, he sees the light - and his future - and grows by the end of the story. It was an interesting story based on when it was written, before the image I have in my head from the first rebooted crew movie where we see the lost Kirk acting out before he meets Pike. Here, April kind of fills that role, but more so the mission and the bad guys.

James Doohan narrated this one - geez, sometimes, the voices he does are so great, it made me …

This was interesting - we see teenage, moody, pain in the ass Jimmy Kirk (just like in the reboot Trek movie), but with his father. George Kirk takes him on a mission that happens to have him see and go on board the newly built USS Enterprise, commanded by Robert April. And it's hardly a spoiler to say that stuff goes wrong, he sees the light - and his future - and grows by the end of the story. It was an interesting story based on when it was written, before the image I have in my head from the first rebooted crew movie where we see the lost Kirk acting out before he meets Pike. Here, April kind of fills that role, but more so the mission and the bad guys.

James Doohan narrated this one - geez, sometimes, the voices he does are so great, it made me wonder if they were really him (yep, they are); and he can do a really good Kirk too!

LemmiSchmoeker reviewed Best destiny by Diane Carey (Star Trek)

Review of 'Best destiny' on 'Storygraph'

1 star

Okay, I'm sorry. I've tried, but I couldn't even bring myself to read more than thirty pages of this drivel. The psychological depth could maybe impress a very dim twelve-year-old. The dialogue seems to have been rewritten over and over again until it has become pure creative writing: there is now nothing but conflict.

The worst part is that Carey (and apparently Gregory Brodeur, who credits himself as a co-author in the foreword) try so hard to be brooding and foreboding in every other paragraph. Apart from simple and honest bad style (“With an aggravated frown he stepped sideways”, “Not even his two closest friends could decipher how deeply he meant those words”) there are monsters such as these: “The head of every experienced person on the bridge suddenly shot around at her, as though she had cursed a kitten—then killed it.” And: “His angular brows drew tightly inward, and …

Okay, I'm sorry. I've tried, but I couldn't even bring myself to read more than thirty pages of this drivel. The psychological depth could maybe impress a very dim twelve-year-old. The dialogue seems to have been rewritten over and over again until it has become pure creative writing: there is now nothing but conflict.

The worst part is that Carey (and apparently Gregory Brodeur, who credits himself as a co-author in the foreword) try so hard to be brooding and foreboding in every other paragraph. Apart from simple and honest bad style (“With an aggravated frown he stepped sideways”, “Not even his two closest friends could decipher how deeply he meant those words”) there are monsters such as these: “The head of every experienced person on the bridge suddenly shot around at her, as though she had cursed a kitten—then killed it.” And: “His angular brows drew tightly inward, and for some reason too personal to be voiced, he gazed at the back of James Kirk's head, the back of a captain intensely occupied with whatever lay before them.”

All these quotes are from the prologue, and it really doesn't get any better when we are led forty-five years into the past, to a snotty and inexperienced Kirk, leader of a group of snotty and inexperienced kids who quarrel all the time, and then stumble into their first big adventure. By this time, though, I was far too exhausted to give them a second chance.