"The World of Star Trek" by David Gerrold (1973)

There's also a mid-80s update of WoST, from just after the third film. Or at least there was in the UK, presume it originated in the state's.

 

Yes, I have a 1984 Bluejay Books "Newly Updated and Revised Edition -- Includes Inside Information on Star Trek III," with the movie Enterprise on the cover above the title.

 

Rather an aside, but I was just pointed back to a 2007 letter by Gerrold where he clarifies from his POV the whole co-creator issue over TNG (link). But here's a relevant quote that indicates he neither expected nor was ever going to be granted any sort of co-creator status:

My agent made the claim for co-creator credit, not me. And he did so without my knowledge. The Guild looked over the matter and said that Gene's rights to the created by credit were protected because the show was a spinoff of Star Trek. I never argued with that because I never wanted to take anything away from Gene. I only wanted to be fairly paid for writing the bible and doing additional producer-level work.
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So there, from the horse's mouth/keyboard.

 

Whatever the Guild rules and technicalities, I don't think it can be denied that Gerrold, Fontana, and Justman all contributed substantially to the creation of TNG. I care more about the actual reality than what label you stick on it.

 

IMO, Gerrold deserved some sort of co-creator credit for TNG. Not only did many of his ideas as expressed in The World of Star Trek (and elsewhere) clearly influence TNG, a read of the early version of the series bible has got Gerrold's fingerprints all over it.

 

Gerrold was the primary writer of the TNG bible. If not for the spinoff techicality, that alone would've entitled him to co-creator credit, just as writing most of the screenplay would've entitled Fontana to co-creator credit.

That said, there are passages in the bible that are clearly Roddenberry's, like the bits where it talks lovingly about Yar and Crusher's "very female" bodies.

 

^^^
Interestingly, there was a (kind of) similar situation with Gerrold's involvement in the Saturday morning series Land of the Lost where he was handed the barest of premises and basically created the series that emerged. See this interview: http://lotl.popapostle.com/html/dginterview.html

For my money, that first season of LotL is pretty good science fiction despite the limitations of budget, timeslot, and the technology available.

Edit to add: and apparently he's now writing a book about his TNG involvement: https://twitter.com/David_Gerrold/s...echrome&ref_url=https://www.gerrold.com/blog/

Will be eager to read this one.

 

This conversation about Gerrald getting or not getting some kind of creator credit for TNG brings up something I've been wondering about for while. What's the difference between a "created by" credit and a "developed by" credit? For example the Netflix Lost in Space series gives a created by credit to the original series creator Irwin Allen, and then a developed by credit to Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, who I believe were actually responsible for the new series.

 

^^^^
I think you may have answered your own question there. The way I read those credits (and I admit I could be wrong) is that that arrangement delineates that Allen created Lost in Space (in it's original form), but that Sazama and Sharpless are responsible for the current incarnation.

 

"Developed" means just what it sounds like -- it's someone who takes a concept created by someone else and develops it into a new format, like remaking an old TV series or doing a TV adaptation of a novel or movie. For instance, M*A*S*H had the credit "Developed for television by Larry Gelbart" (because it was based on a movie that was based on a novel) and Arrow is "Developed by Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, and Andrew Kreisberg." (The "for television" part of the credit is no longer standard.)

Basically, it's the same as the difference between creation and development in other areas. Development is something you do to change something that already exists or to bring out its potential -- you develop a tract of land, you develop your mind or muscles through exercise, you develop a film negative after it's exposed.

So if Roddenberry had not been directly involved in creating TNG, the credit would probably have been something like "Developed for television by D.C. Fontana & David Gerrold, Based upon STAR TREK created by Gene Roddenberry."

Oddly, there are some shows today that give a "created by" credit to people who should get "developed by" credits, such as the developers/showrunners of the Netflix Marvel shows. I've been puzzled by that for a while now.

 

Basically, that.

I've said myself that one can make a much stronger case for Gerrold as a co-creator on Land of the Lost where he took a sketchy premise and built it out into something filmable. TNG by contrast is basically Star Trek with a cast replacement, a new ship, and some minor tweaks to the show format. That's an iteration not a creation per se. So I'd side with the WGA on that matter, absolutely.

 

Thanks for that letter; I think I'd seen it quoted, but never read the whole thing.

"Ten years from now, twenty years, whatever, I'll still be here writing science fiction"

Little could Gerrold have known, however, that twenty years later he would be writing the same piece of science fiction still.

 

Or, rather, not writing it.

 

That quote is from a 2007 letter, so I don't think you can speak to what he'll be doing in 2027. He might actually manage to finish The War Against the Chtorr by then. But anyway, he's done a goodly amount of other stuff in the meantime.

 

@Maurice was mistaken; it was posted to that blog in 2007, but as stated in the intro ("we at Trekdom are posting a letter that Gerrold wrote to David Alexander in 1994"), and as inferrable from context (clearly Alexander's book had just come out), the letter was written in 1994.

 

Yeah, I typed the wrong date.

 

Another good example was the Dallas 2012 revival show (which was a continuation of the original show). There was some discussion about how to apply the credits. Ultimately it was settled that it would show "Created by David Jacobs" (who created the original show) and it showed "Developed by Cynthia Cider"---who was the showrunner of the revival show. David Jacobs had nothing to do with the revival show. There was some legalities involved I think as well, because originally there was talk of giving Cidre a created by credit. They eventually settled on a developed by credit. I think a lot of it had to do with that it was a continuation and included characters and storylines from the original show---basically making it a sequel, and not a reboot.

 

And that's a bit different than later Star Trek shows that show "Created by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga" for instance. Because while those later shows are essentially sequels (or prequels in the case of Enterprise and Discovery) they have basically new characters, new ships, new storylines. Actually the Dallas revival is probably best put as a continuation, instead of a sequel really. It's a continuation several years removed from the end of the previous incarnation, but a continuation nonetheless. Cidre even said as much, saying it continues after the 14th season after a 20 year gap (ignoring the 2 telefilms in the mid 90s).

 

I missed that one.

One of the last books in a small format was this wasn't it?
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Star-Trek-Wrath-Khan/dp/0671461826

I think ST III was the very last. Now we have a lot of physically larger books--nothing in a digest format.

Now, when did these taller novel sizes come out I'm starting to see?