REVIEW: 'The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway' • TrekCore.com

Continuing their way through some of Starfleet’s greatest captains, Titan Books has now added The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway to their line of in-universe autobiographies, a perfect way to honor Star Trek: Voyager’s 25th anniversary.

The Janeway book, whose tagline reads “The history of the captain who went further than any had before,” is in the same style as the previous two releases — covering the life and times of James T. Kirk and the exploits of Jean-Luc Picard — but with a different author.

Una McCormack, who has written a number of Star Trek novels over the years, takes over from Kirk and Picard writer David A. Goodman. That change works particularly well for Janeway, as McCormack succeeds in exploring the many complexities of Captain Janeway’s tale, with some of the appropriate lived experiences to help portray that.

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway is a great character study for Kate Mulgrew’s alter ego. Tracking her entire life –from childhood, through Starfleet Academy, her earlier career, time on Voyager, and then a little beyond — McCormack has Janeway’s voice and inflection absolutely spot on. At no time do you think this book is about anyone other than Kathryn Janeway.

McCormack echoes the eloquence and thoughtfulness of the Janeway character, and really gets inside the character’s head in a number of areas where the series fell silent. Given Janeway’s position as captain on Voyager, there was never much of an opportunity for her to share her deepest thoughts with any of the other series regulars, because they were all members of her crew.

But in this book, we get a much deeper reflection from Janeway on a number of aspects of her life, including her views on relationships and the partners she had both before and during her time on Voyager. We get much more, for example, on Janeway’s relationship with Mark Johnson — how it developed, how she felt about him after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, and her reaction to the news that he had married someone else.

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway also gives us additional snippets of insight on many of the show’s most pivotal episodes. As with the Kirk and Picard autobiographies, when they reach the parts of their lives we’ve seen on screen they tend to jump around providing a few addition bits of insight here or there.

But it is in the portion covering Janeway’s early life that the book triumphs. From Voyager, we actually do not know a massive amount about Janeway — and particularly her career — before the crew ended up in the Delta Quadrant. We have a sense of her family, the broad outlines of her career, and her relationship with Mark, but there are a lot of gaps for McCormack to fill in.

We get a chance to see how Janeway became the capable and confident captain of Voyager in the most difficult of circumstances, and this book will deepen your appreciation for this great character, and rev up your excitement for Janeway’s return in Star Trek: Prodigy.

But if you’re looking for some clues about what Prodigy might bring, I don’t think this book has any. Like the previous autobiographies, the book only dwells briefly on what happens after the events of “Endgame,” the Voyager finale. Obviously, we know Janeway became an admiral (thanks to her cameo in Star Trek: Nemesis), and there is a small twist for the character that I won’t spoil here that did come a little out of left field.

But there are obviously still adventures for the character to be had, though this book does not appear to tease of any of them.

In addition to McCormack’s stellar prose, like the previous releases there are a number of glossy photos included in an insert to the book. My personal favorite of these, which include digitally manipulated pictures of Kate Mulgrew — ever wanted to see what Janeway looked like as a Starfleet cadet? Now you can! — is the last picture, which shows Admiral Janeway wearing the 2399 Starfleet admiral’s uniform seen on Admiral Clancy in her appearances on Star Trek: Picard. It suits Janeway very well!

If there’s one area where this book is a little bit of a letdown compared to the Picard and Kirk autobiographies, though, it is that it does not diverge into the same imaginative territory as those other two releases.

That’s to be expected, though, and is not a criticism of McCormack. The Kirk and Picard books were written before Star Trek came back to TV, and given that it is now back on the air in multiple timeframes new tie in content should be respectful of allowing the TV shows to develop and tell their own stories. But we do lose some of the more colorful inclusions of the Goodman books, like the Picard book’s explanation for why the Denobulans have not been seen since the Star Trek: Enterprise era..

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway plays it straight –b ut there’s still so much here to like. Una McCormack is a terrific Star Trek author, and despite her passion clearly being Deep Space Nine and the Cardassians specifically (who end up playing a bigger role in Janeway’s life than you might have thought), she takes extremely well to Janeway and the Voyager milieu.

If you’re a Janeway or a Voyager fan, this book is definitely for you.