20 Things You Didn't Know About Star Trek Generations
2. William Shatner Wrote A Sequel Novel "Fixing" Kirk's Death
Following the overwhelmingly negative fan response to Kirk's death - more the nature of it than the actual death itself - William Shatner decided to write his own sequel novel, The Return, with fellow scribes Garfield Reeves-Stevens and Judith Reeves-Stevens.
Published in April 1996, the novel saw the Romulans align with the Borg to bring Kirk back to life using alien technology, before implanting false memories in his mind to turn him against Picard and the crew of the Enterprise.
In the end Kirk is broken free of his conditioning and sacrifices himself to destroy the Borg, but given that Spock can still sense him via their mind-meld, he doesn't really believe Kirk is dead.
It's in many ways a more satisfying send-off for Kirk than Generations, except that the next entry in the "Shatnerverse" series of novels, 1997's Avenger, swiftly confirmed Kirk's survival thanks to a lucky last-minute transporter beam-out.