Just finished reading The Showrunner: An Insider’s Guide to Successful TV Production by Cy Chermak (2016). "The Virginian" (1962-1971), "The Bold Ones: The New Doctors" (1969-1973), "Ironside" (1967-1975), "Amy Prentiss" (1974-1975), "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" (1974-1975), "Barbary Coast" (1975-1976), "CHiPs" (1977-1983). Cy Chermak (1929-January 29, 2021) served as producer and/or executive producer on all of these series, and this is his behind the scenes accounting/memoir of his long and accomplished career in television. Chermak spends most of the book going over all of the things a "show runner" (what Chermak describes as a "working executive producer", versus others with that title who do not actually take care of the day to day needs of production) must take care of. All the people he or she must meet with and decisions that must be made. Working with the stars, the casting director, the production managers, set designers, directors, editors, etc. All the while, Chermak sprinkles in interesting anecdotes from the various series he worked on and the people he worked with. Then, in the last part of the book he discusses “The Virginian”, “Ironside”, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”, and “CHiPs” in more detail, each in their own chapter. A very enjoyable read. Chermak could be both biting at times of others yet was always fair in his assessments of just what went down in each instance. And he could be just as critical of himself. And his sense of humor runs throughout the book, making it a fun read (in addition to reading about all of the behind the scenes stuff like actors walking off of sets when not getting their way, and others trying to exert control over the entire production or squabbling with their fellow co-stars). Sadly, Chermak just recently passed away this past January. I learned of Chermak’s book when he was interviewed on Ed Robertson “TV Confidential” radio show/podcast. The copy of Chermak’s book is one that I borrowed from the Tampa/Hillsborough County Public Library (added to their collection as one of my monthly “please buy” requests). I gave it four out of five stars on GoodReads. (Oh, and there is a Star Trek connection. Chermak along with Stuart Charno and Sara Charno wrote the TNG episode, The Wounded”.)
I finished up Star Trek: The Tears of the Singers for the first time. It's got a lot to recommend it: a sense of wonder about the Singers and what they can do, Uhura in a featured role, the return of Kor and some other interesting Klingons, and solutions that are better than just outgunning the problem.
In The Dark by Mark Billingham. It's the first of his that I've read, but I know some of my family are fans of his.
Currently re-reading The Rings of Time as part of my 20th/21st century re-read. Reading this after 2020 actually happened is weird, but I think "conspiracy theorist hides on spacecraft to advance conspiracy theory" is very true to the 2020 spirit.
As I've probably mentioned before, I had a definite sense that the window was shrinking to write about that Saturn mission before the real near-future turned into the past!
Loved it myself. Bought a copy as a Christmas present to a cousin, who also loved it. Confession: Since it involves Lt. Uhura and music, I've occasionally confused and conflated it in my mind with Uhura's Song (which I also regard as excellent), but of course, they're very different stories. Then again, for a few years, I conflated Liechtensteiner composer Joseph Rheinberger with Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger, even though their compositions are very different, and they were barely contemporary by 5 years, and certainly not contemporaries as active composers (Rheinberger died in 1901; Weinberger was born in 1896).
Isaiah. BTW, Re: confusion and conflation, one pair of seemingly similar items I don't confuse and conflate are Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus. Nobody who's read both could ever mistake one for the other!
BLESS THE BEASTS by Karen Haber. A late ‘90s Voyager novel, in which Tom and Harry go missing amidst a plotline involving a planet’s exploitation of a species of fish. To be honest, it’s a pretty standard ‘90s Trek book; there are some annoying typos and transpositions of words (“matter” in place of “manner,” for example), and it takes quite a while to get going. In fact it kind of feels, oddly, as if the book was going to be too short, and had to be padded to reach its proper word count. Except that then the ending is very abrupt and cursory. It’s kind of irritating that Haber generally just refers to the aliens as men and women, since it means you forget they’re basically giant storks (quite aside from meaning that human characters – especially Tom and Harry on shore leave – reacting to them as to human women is misleading and daft) A couple of apparent plotlines get teased but then forgotten – what’s up with the song that’s so noted early on? However, the regular characters seem pretty much in character, and it reminded me how B’Elanna and Harry could have been a more interesting mismatch. Neelix is, if anything, even more annoying than on screen, but the Holodoc gets some nice if limited handling in his scenes, getting into how his system works. Overall, though, it just felt a Trek novel I’ve read a dozen times before, under different titles, in the 90s… Which itself has a certain nostalgia value, actually.