New Book about TOS: These Are The Voyages

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by neoworx, Jul 13, 2013.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. neoworx

    neoworx Lieutenant Red Shirt

    Joined:
    Aug 10, 2010
    A new 3-book series called "These are the Voyages" will be available later this year. If it lives up to its claims it could be something really cool. We'll have to see.

    "These Are The Voyages: Season One"
     
  2. T'Girl

    T'Girl Vice Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 20, 2009
    Location:
    T'Girl
    ... claiming it's "The book Gene Roddenberry and Robert Justman wanted you to read".

    Unless the late Roddenberry is going to somehow lay his hands on the majority of the money from the sales of this book, I doubt he would want anyone to read it.


    :)
     
  3. grabthars hammer

    grabthars hammer Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Jul 1, 2005
    Location:
    New Jersey
    Hope it'll be good but what a regrettable choice of title.
     
  4. Warped9

    Warped9 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Aug 3, 2003
    Location:
    Brockville, Ontario, Canada
    Having read the excerpt this does indeed sound interesting.
     
  5. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2005
    The extensive use of the archival collections at UCLA should make this pretty interesting, even if it will make it harder for me to find stuff to blog about.
     
  6. bbailey861

    bbailey861 Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2009
    Location:
    Kingston, ON Canada
  7. Myko

    Myko Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2004
    Location:
    Hell on Earth, Stockholm
    That excerpt about Shore Leave was great, looking forward to this!
     
  8. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    What an awful cover.

    I found the excerpts interesting. It's fascinating to get a glimpse into the production travails, and seeing confirmation that some things fans have argued about for years are, as expected, simply oversights by a production probably scrambling to stay on schedule (e.g. “Lithium Crystal Recharging Section” gets mislabeled "Engineering").

    I'm curious what all the sources are. The memos are one thing, but did he interview all these people, or is he quoting other interviews at length?

    I do have a concern based on these excerpts: the author editorializes too much, both via word choice ("the sloppiness continued") and in stating things which are not factual ("It may very well have been the best-staged fight shot for TV.").

    Furthermore, there are some weirdly unexplained things like "The scenes in the alternate engineering set were planned to come next". What? What "alternate engineering set"? Does this mean in the script we are seeing two different Enterprises, one in each universe? Or does he mean the mislabeled lithium recharghing station? Impossible to decipher from the way it's worded.

    So, it looks worth reading for the direct quotes, but I'm leery of the author's opinions, conclusions and lack of specificity.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2013
  9. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 8, 2005
    According to the author's website, the three books contains hundreds of previously unpublished interviews, which he conducted. The cover art and lax prose seem par for the course when it comes to print-on-demand books like this, unfortunately. It is too bad the money raised via Kickstarter couldn't have been used to make improvements in these areas.

    The quality of the author's conclusions remains to be seen -- I am leery of anything so openly endorsed by Roddenberry's estate -- but the raw materials of a great book are certainly there.
     
  10. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2004
    The extensive quotes from Mars and Banks (who aren't listed as dead on imdb) sure make it seem like they are new interviews, but then that suggests a lot more time than 8 months for the work on this. Maybe 8 months going through the archives, plus however much more doing the interviews?

    It seems too good to be true, but I'm jazzed about it ... this may actually make up for some of the missed opportunities Pocket had in the 90s for their ART OF to interview the behind-the-scenes folk before most of them started expiring.
     
  11. Myko

    Myko Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2004
    Location:
    Hell on Earth, Stockholm
    Behind the scenes books on TOS that aren't just rehashes of what we already know with pretty pictures (Star Trek 365) are so far between nowadays that it doesn't have to be that good for me to pick it up.
     
  12. ZapBrannigan

    ZapBrannigan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Location:
    New York State
    I think there might be a little misprint in the "Shore Leave" excerpt. He refers to a 150 pound tiger. Adult Bengal tigers weigh between 300 and 490 pounds.

    Maybe he had the figure in kilograms and forgot to convert it.
     
  13. ZapBrannigan

    ZapBrannigan Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Jan 7, 2013
    Location:
    New York State
    I didn't know they continued after dark on location for "Shore Leave," using stage lights to simulate daylight. I'll bet those are scenes where the non-sunlight quality led me to think they had shot additional scenes indoors.

    There are some shots by Lazarus's little ship in "The Alternative Factor" that look very indoor; now I wonder if they were just out there at night with the studio lamps on.

    Also, Bruce Mars adds some evidence to the theory that William Shatner was a nice, normal lead actor, and the whole supporting cast animosity legend was cooked up after the series, behind his back.
     
  14. Myko

    Myko Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2004
    Location:
    Hell on Earth, Stockholm
    The anti-matter universe scenes in Alternative Factor was shot on the stage to make it appear different, if that's what you mean.
     
  15. trevanian

    trevanian Rear Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2004
    Yet the Shat stuff about Robert Sparr does lend credence to him throwing his weight around (no pun intended) in ways that weren't necessarily best for the show (and that from a longtime Shat defender.)
     
  16. EnsignHarper

    EnsignHarper Captain Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 6, 2006
    Location:
    OCNY
    First two books will definitely be worth it - the amount of detail in just the excerpts bodes well!
     
  17. CrazyMatt

    CrazyMatt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Feb 21, 2013
    Location:
    Sitting in Kirk's command chair
    Any further updates on when these books will be available for purchase and via what means?
     
  18. feek61

    feek61 Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

    Joined:
    Nov 25, 2011
    Location:
    In the Sunshine!
  19. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2001
    Location:
    I said out, dammit!
    Ordered!
     
  20. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

    Joined:
    Oct 17, 2005
    Location:
    Real Gone
    I'm going to wait to hear someone received theirs before shelling out bucks, since this appears to be their first book, which to me sounds like-self publishing and I've seen those get delayed and delayed.
     
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.