Lists

Picture of a book: Fun with Kirk and Spock
Picture of a book: Troublesome Minds
Picture of a book: Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion
Picture of a book: The Star Trek Encyclopedia
Picture of a book: Star Trek: Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise
Picture of a book: Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual
Picture of a book: Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual
Picture of a book: The IDIC Epidemic
Picture of a book: Vulcan's Forge
Picture of a book: Memory Prime

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Picture of a book: Star Trek Memories
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Star Trek Memories

William Shatner, Chris Kreski
4.5 starsWilliam Shatner as Captain Kirk In this book William Shatner, the original 'Captain Kirk' from Star Trek, talks about the birth of the original TV series, the long struggle it took to get it on the air, and the people involved in making it a success. Star Trek was created by producer and writer Gene Roddenberry, who was fascinated with space since childhood. Gene Roddenberry created Star TrekIt took years, though - and a lot of missteps - before a studio picked up the show and a successful pilot was made. Eventually Roddenberry assembled the core cast, including Shatner (Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (Spock), Nichelle Nichols (Uhura), DeForest Kelley (Dr. McCoy), James Doohan (Scotty), ...George Takei (Sulu), William Koenig (Chekov), and Majel Barrett (Nurse Chapel). Leonard Nimoy as SpockNichelle Nichols as UhuraDeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoyJames Doohan as ScottyGeorge Takei as SuluWilliam Koenig as ChekovMajel Barrett as Nurse ChapelAn interesting tidbit: Majel Barrett was Roddenberry's girlfriend and played the first officer (Number One) in the original pilot, which failed. The public wasn't ready for a woman in the role. Shatner's writing is light and breezy and contains fun interesting anecdotes. One Star Trek episode, for instance, featured alien women with green skin. It was hard to get the color right on this alien woman with green skinAs a test before shooting an actress was slathered in green makeup and filmed....but the developed footage came back with flesh-toned skin. A more intense shade of green makeup was used, with the same result. In desperation, the makeup folks tried very thick, very dark green goop - to no avail....the skin still looked beige. Eventually a call to the film developers revealed that they were exhausting themselves, working overtime to 'fix' the skin color problem. (ha ha ha)Another story details how difficult it was to get Spock's pointy ears right. It took time to get Spock's pointy ears rightThe studio, being cost conscious, wanted the ears done on the cheap. So one inexpensive fake ear after another was tried, but they all looked terrible....and Nimoy - not wanting to look ridiculous - was becoming seriously perturbed. In the end, 'expensive' ears had to be ordered behind the backs of the bean counters. Moreover, Spock was originally supposed to be half Martian with red skin! Spock was originally supposed to have red skinIn any case it took a long time to get Spock's appearance just right (pointed ears, devilish eyebrows, the iconic hairdo), and required a lot of negotiation with network honchos. They thought the public wouldn't accept an alien-looking crew member. (How wrong they were!)When Star Trek was in danger of being cancelled after the first season Roddenberry recruited a couple of avid fans to organize a 'keep Star Trek on the air' campaign. One enterprising woman sneaked into the VIP parking lot of a Hollywood studio and slapped a 'Star Trek' bumper sticker on every limousine and luxury car. Star Trek bumper stickerJohnny Carson probably went home with a Star Trek sticker on his car that night! The fans were convincing and the show was renewed. By season three, however, Star Trek was out of luck. It was stuck in a Friday night time slot (a death knell), the budget was slashed, and the episodes became mundane (or worse). Viewership fell and the show was cancelled. In a way this was a blessing because it led to many spinoff series and Star Trek movies.Shatner covers every aspect of the original TV series, including the actors, costumes, set design, special effects, stories, scripts, directors, producers, lighting, editing, etc. To get the inside scoop Shatner interviewed many of the people involved with the show and includes their stories verbatim. This adds a lot of personality and interest to the book.Star Trek costumes Star Trek set designStar Trek special effectsThough the Star Trek franchise eventually became a juggernaut, the original series wasn't a big success (at first) - and producing it wasn't all sweetness and light. Shatner reveals that Nimoy had serious disagreements with Roddenberry about many issues, including the sale of Star Trek merchandise (the actors didn't benefit) and the sale of blooper reels (which Nimoy thought were embarrassing). Star Trek merchandiseMoreover, when Shatner interviewed his co-stars, many revealed hostile feelings toward him. In their opinion Shatner made it his business to inflate his role and cut theirs. In fact James Doohan refused to speak to Shatner and wasn't interviewed for the book. From Shatner's point of view he doesn't recall doing this.....but he probably did. I remember Shatner - a married man - had a reputation for being conceited and trying to 'romance' (wink wink) all the female guest stars. (He doesn't talk about this in the book. LOL)I've always liked Star Trek and I thoroughly enjoyed the book. My one caveat: I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Shatner, and he tends to talk too fast sometimes. This is a minor quibble though. If you're Star Trek fan you'll like this book. Me....I'm inspired to go back and watch all the original Star Trek episodes looking for things that Shatner mentions. You can follow my reviews at https://reviewsbybarbsaffer.blogspot....
Picture of a book: All Good Things...
books

All Good Things...

As I write this, Easter was just three weeks ago. For some reason, this particular Easter, a particular memory of another particular Easter sprang to mind. I don't know why, but I had a good laugh with my dear old mom about it.So. It's Saturday night, April 15th, 1995. Easter Eve. My parents and I went out for the evening, like we so often did. I was a freshman in high school, not wanting to be out with Mom and Dad, but I knew that not only would we go to dinner at a restaurant (probably Applebee's or some other sports bar/family type place that had popped up all of a sudden in Toledo all over the place at the time), we would go shopping afterward. I always had a book or CD to buy (remember CD's?!), so for a 14 year old kid who couldn't drive and lived in a tiny suburb where the best I could hope for was the grocery store (long before the days of "grocery stores" having billions of items other than just food), I eagerly tagged along.Anyway, we went to Target after eating, just perusing the aisles. Under the impression that my mom had already finished her Easter shopping (more than just candy, she love to get all sorts of crap for us and everyone else in the extended family), I figured we were just doing whatever we could.In the book section, I found the novelization of the movie Stargate, and the novelization of All Good Things, Star Trek: The Next Generation's series finale that had aired almost a year prior. I was big into licesened properties, namely Star Trek, but also into movie novelizations for some reason. I really don't know why, but that was my jam at the time.So I'm carrying these two books with me, and my parents find me. Mom asks what I've got, so I show her the books. She took them and put them in her cart, and I just didn't think about it. By the time we left, she had paid for them.I didn't complain, because hey, free books. Not thinking, I didn't ask for the books when we got home. Chances are, I had been in the middle of another book at the time, and didn't feel the need to horde these on my already overstuffed bookcase.The next morning, Easter Sunday, our parents woke us up to find our Easter baskets. You read that right--my at 14, my brother at 16, and my sister home from college at 19, were woken up early on a Sunday morning to find hidden Easter baskets. Adorable.Oh yeah, the book itself.I liked it. There was a lot more in the story than they could show on the television episode. I loved how characters that were somewhat prominent on the series but hadn't been seen for a while appeared, some getting a send-off, others just kind of...there.To be honest, All Good Things wasn't the finale it could have been, and I attribute a lot of that to the fact that we knew Star Trek Generations was coming out six months after the episode. It wasn't like the last time we'd ever see these characters, although it did have a good, heartwarming feeling to it.That said, the book to me was a bit of a tease, even though I had already seen the show and the movie. I read it expecting a big, hearty GOODBYE, LOYAL FANS! from all the characters, especially those tertiary characters like Dr. Pulaski, Wesley Crusher, and several others, but instead, it ended just like the show, fully prepared to usher us into Generations, and the next couple of movies.Regardless, I enjoyed this. Maybe it was the memory of how I came to own the book, or maybe it was the nice, warm spring of 1995, a perfect end to a terrible freshmen year of high school, or maybe even something else I can't seem to recall at this moment.TL;DR:Good book. Great series. Happy Easter.