David Gerrold's The Star Wolf

[Vendikarr]

It's a great book series, and David Gerrorld, along with D.C. Fontana have launched a Kickstarter campaign to produce a series based on the books.

I've always enjoyed David's works, and think this could work rather well as a series. Yes, it is Trek inspired in a few places, but I feel he's kept the best of Trek for his series.

If you're interested, here's the kickstarter link.

Who else has read the books, and what are your thoughts on them, and this series idea?

[Allyn Gibson]

Vendikarr wrote:

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Who else has read the books, and what are your thoughts on them, and this series idea?

It's been a long time since I read The Voyage of the Star Wolf and Starhunt. (I haven't read The Middle of Nowhere or Blood and Fire.)

They read like Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. It might be better to say that The Voyage of the Star Wolf is what Star Trek: The Next Generation would have been if Riker, not Picard, were the dramatic lead. Gerrold took some of his ideas for what Star Trek could be and built a novel out of them.

Gerrold has wanted a Star Wolf television series for some time. (He even talks about it in his semi-autobiographical novel The Martian Child.) Now that there isn't a Star Trek television series, this could fill the niche.

[Mysterion]

The Star Wolf series are some of my favorite books. I periodically re-read them, and always enjoy them all over again. As has been pointed out already, these stories came in large part from Gerrold's reaction to what was being done with TNG. The characters here are so much more interesting then their TNG counterparts. For example Brik is much more complex a character than they ever let Worf be.

I've read the series bible and first four scripts that were written for a SW series back in the early 90's (IIRC), and they were really great stuff. The prospect of seeing these stories on-screen is very exciting, and I wish Gerrold and Fontana well.

This is what TNG should have been, and maybe could have been if Gerrold had stayed on back in the early days of the series.

In my opinion Star Wolf has the potential to beocme a classic of SF television.

ETA: Just watched the video posted on the kickstarter site. Some nice CGI there, and some very interesting ship design. Very cool to see the Star Wolf herself realized in CGI!

[trevanian]

I don't think I could even finish MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, but I liked the others a lot. Except for the SharpLineArts guy being involved, which fills me with dread based on the TMP-DE and some limited interaction with him when that project was getting snarled up (it was delayed for the better part of a year because Paramount insisted the supplement stuff be recut -- it had been intended to release January 7, 2001 ... 1-7-01), I very much respect the people he has assembled for this project.

Having said that ... YESTERDAY'S CHILDREN (the first revision, around 1979 or so) is the Gerrold space project I've wanted to see, or make myself (yeah, like it THAT much.)

It was supposed to be made as STARHUNT around 1980 but that obviously never happened. I went through that book with a highlighter and there is already a good script there, potentially a great one. It features a VERY different Jon Korie, and a much different dynamic among the crew, but there are an awful lot of familiar names if you've read the WOLF books, and some of them seem like the same characters.

Does anybody else think Gerrold has missed his calling? I keep thinking he should have been doing a GALAXY QUEST TV series (that opinion's based on his hysterical KENNEDY ENTERPRISE alternate-reality story, where RFK runs MGM and, wanting to get mileage out of the old FORBIDDEN PLANET costumes, greenlights STAR TREK, but later arranges to have his has-been actor-brother John F. Kennedy replace Shatner on TREK -- firing Nimoy and bringing in Donald Pleasance as an android -- and the show goes through the roof in the ratings.)

[Maurice]

I wish them luck. Their pitch video isn't great, though, and $650K is a lot of money, but it's obviously not impossible.

I read Yesterday's Children (a title which to me made no sense to the story) once upon a time and liked the twist at the end. I don't recall a lot about it otherwise, and never read the Star Wolf books. I tried Gerrold's Chtorr series, but got bored with it after a few volumes...in fact they made such a non-impression on me that I can't remember much about them at all.

I hope the scripts for Star Wolf are better than his Blood and Fire script (which he also directed) for the Phase II fanfilm series, because that was a weak, padded teleplay.

[Christopher]

Maurice wrote:

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I read Yesterday's Children (a title which to me made no sense to the story) once upon a time

Well, Gerrold started off intending to write a novel based on his rejected Star Trek outline about a centuries-old generation ship whose human occupants had forgotten their origins (which he eventually wrote as the Bantam ST novel The Galactic Whirlpool). The title worked for that story. But once he started writing about the new ship and crew and backstory he created for the non-Trek version of the novel, he got so caught up in it that it caused the story to veer off in a totally different direction -- yet for whatever reason he didn't change the title. At least, not until he wrote the expanded 1980 version of YC, which was originally published under that title but was later reissued as Starhunt.

and liked the twist at the end.

The end of which version? The original book ended at Chapter 28. The expanded version added eleven more chapters after that and totally reversed the ending of the original. I liked the original ending much better, and felt the expanded version was something of a copout.

In the original ending, Korie's conviction that there's an enemy ship still after them turns out to be just paranoia, but the added chapters reveal that he was right after all.

Fortunately, the expanded version (which is the one I have) doesn't seem to have altered the content of the first 28 chapters, just continued the story past them. So I can just stop reading at the original endpoint if I choose.

[xortex]

The ship looks fine and cool but a little like the firefly and the uniforms are god awful, sort of like Forbidden Planet if they were all gay. I'm sure it'll be OK but if it was the next great space opera, why didn't the Sly-fly channel pick it up? It also looks like Polaris. Nothing new here. Frankly I'd rather see Polaris.

Jim and Jim.

[RJDiogenes]

I was excited for a moment about the prospect of something to fill the void left by Star Trek, but then I saw a promo about a war story with a lot of adolescent posturing and people saying "kick ass" a lot. I guess I'll wait for something else to come along.

[Kelso]

It's David Gerrold and D.C. Fontanta. I'll kick in a few bucks to see what they've got up their sleeves.

[Klaus]

I read and enjoyed Yesterday's Children long ago, and the first couple of Chtorr books... but I'd rather see them do a film of The Man Who Folded Himself.

[middyseafort]

Allyn Gibson wrote:

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It's been a long time since I read The Voyage of the Star Wolf and Starhunt. (I haven't read The Middle of Nowhere or Blood and Fire.)

They read like Star Trek with the serial numbers filed off. It might be better to say that The Voyage of the Star Wolf is what Star Trek: The Next Generation would have been if Riker, not Picard, were the dramatic lead. Gerrold took some of his ideas for what Star Trek could be and built a novel out of them.

Gerrold has wanted a Star Wolf television series for some time. (He even talks about it in his semi-autobiographical novel The Martian Child.) Now that there isn't a Star Trek television series, this could fill the niche.

Have to agree that it does read like what Gerrold would've liked to have seen for TNG. Really enjoyed THE VOYAGE OF THE STAR WOLF. The second book, THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, really went nowhere quickly and I abandoned it halfway through.

Maurice wrote:

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I wish them luck. Their pitch video isn't great, though, and $650K is a lot of money, but it's obviously not impossible.

I read Yesterday's Children (a title which to me made no sense to the story) once upon a time and liked the twist at the end. I don't recall a lot about it otherwise, and never read the Star Wolf books. I tried Gerrold's Chtorr series, but got bored with it after a few volumes...in fact they made such a non-impression on me that I can't remember much about them at all.

The book's later title (or, better still, iteration since Gerrold tinkers with his stories, improving them again and again) STAR HUNT made a heckuv a lot more sense.

Maurice wrote:

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I hope the scripts for Star Wolf are better than his Blood and Fire script (which he also directed) for the Phase II fanfilm series, because that was a weak, padded teleplay.

BLOOD and FIRE (the book) is more enjoyable and clever than the fan film (STAR TREK: PHASE II) version. Loved how they get Korie and the Mission Team (an Away Team by any other name) to the side of the ship protected by the force field. Now that's something I'd like to see on film. There's more dramatic choices and consequences for the characters in the novel than in the fan film teleplay and not a lot of hokey lip service about the loyalty of the captain.

Although, the relationship between the two gay characters in the book is still treated with kid's gloves, and lacks all the complications that real relationships, gay or otherwise, have.

[Maurice]

Christopher wrote:

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Well, Gerrold started off intending to write a novel based on his rejected Star Trek outline ...the story to veer off in a totally different direction -- yet for whatever reason he didn't change the title. At least, not until he wrote the expanded 1980 version of YC, which was originally published under that title but was later reissued as Starhunt.

I'm aware of the origin of the title, and never understood why he didn't change it.

Christopher wrote:

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The end of which version? The original book ended at Chapter 28. The expanded version added eleven more chapters after that and totally reversed the ending of the original. I liked the original ending much better, and felt the expanded version was something of a copout.

Yesterday's Children, which I mentioned specifically, is the only version of the story I've read, so I can't speak to the Starhunt additions.

[Christopher]

^As I said, the expanded edition was originally published under the Yesterday's Children title (that's the edition I have), and only later retitled Starhunt. So both versions of the story are available under the YC title.

[Allyn Gibson]

Maurice wrote:

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I'm aware of the origin of the title, and never understood why he didn't change it.

Sometimes a writer falls in love with a title before or during writing, and even though it doesn't fit by the end of the process they don't want to change it.

I keep trying to hang the word "Apocryphon" on stories, but it never sticks.

[Mysterion]

RJDiogenes wrote:

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I was excited for a moment about the prospect of something to fill the void left by Star Trek, but then I saw a promo about a war story with a lot of adolescent posturing and people saying "kick ass" a lot. I guess I'll wait for something else to come along.

You should really give the books a chance before you make a final judgement.

There is really a lot more to it than posturing and "kicking ass".