The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway by Kathryn M Janeway

  

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway

by Kathryn M Janeway

edited by Una McCormack

First Published 2020 by Paramount Pictures Corporation

It is odd to read the autobiography of a fictional character who wont be born for a couple of hundred years, especially, as it is an autobiography, and therefore it is written by that person, but, if you accept that person as real, then it works.

Her early childhood is happy and secure, she grows up wanting to follow in her Fathers footsteps, and join Starfleet. She works hard and gets in a year early, with the intention of becoming a Captain. Things don’t go that smoothly at the Academy, there are those who think she got her place because she is her Father’s daughter. Nothing she can do about that, except work extra hard to prove that she got there on her own merit. This doesn’t end when she graduates, there is always someone saying she got what she got because of her Father.

The book fills in what we don’t know about her before she became Captain of Voyager. I didn’t know it was her first command, though I think I knew it was a new ship, I didn’t know that her previous Captain thought that she got the post because of her late Father and not on her merit. It would have been interesting to know how he felt when the ship was reported missing, though it wouldn’t have fitted in with the narrative.

The journey through the Delta quadrant is well documented in the tv series, so it is well that she doesn’t go into too much detail, though there were a few things that I thought should have been included, but I suppose there always will be. It is what happened next that I find difficult, everyone seems to have left Voyager and lived happy lives. Though in Picard, 7 of 9 is looking for revenge after Icheb dies in her arms. Also, there is a movement towards accepting holograms, like the Doctor, as having human rights, which leads to a backlash and civil unrest. Of course, this could be accounted for in alternatives realities, there are several stories in which things go wrong, badly and then something is done that takes everyone back to before it happened and they go down another path that takes them away from the bad ending.

Whatever, it takes you into the reality of Kathryn Janeway and her life and leaves you wondering if the older Janeway, turning up to help at the end of Voyager’s journey, manages to do it without ending up dead, and if so, what did she do next, how did she get home this time, did her daughter help in that return.