Star Trek Concordance -- One More Time!

I only discovered the Concordance around the time Enterprise debuted. One of the things I really enjoyed about it how focused it was. Including the guest appearances from the spinoff shows.

It reminded me of a Superman encyclopedia from the 1970s I have. Which had an entry on Batman. But was limited to info about him seen in guest appearances in Superman stories. Got a similar vibe from TNG characters entries. Treating them like guest stars.

 

In 2010, I don't see the point of doing a reference book for people who think the only real Star Trek was the one with Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, et al., and who think the only moments of later Trek worth noting are the ones they guest-starred in. I didn't like the way the Citadel ediiton approached the Star Trek universe, and I don't like what I'm reading about the new one here, though I can always hope Bjo isn't as negative and cranky about post-TOS Trek as her representative here seems to be.

 

It's not a matter of thinking that "only the original series is Star Trek", it's a matter of what Bjo is allowed to include. Her rights to the Concordance only include TOS, TAS, and subsequent appearances and references to material from TOS and TAS. Unless there's an explicit connection to TOS, it's simply off limits.

As far as my crankiness goes, you haven't chatted with David Gerrold lately, have you? That man has raised crankiness to an art form.

 

All I can say is, what good is a Concordance that doesn't have the spinny index wheel thingy in the front cover?

 

More affordable?

 

If she's doing an unlicensed book, does any of that really apply? Ballantine had the rights to do some Trek books in the 1970s, but the Citadel edition and the new one aren't from licensed publishers. Does she have some nonstandard kind of deal with Paramount/CBS/whatever?

 

You could as easily ask, why bring the Concordance back at all? If it's because there's a resurgence of interest in Star Trek, that movie Captain Robert April so dislikes would seem to be a factor, and something the book should embrace.

The Citadel Concordance was published in 1995. The clampdown really started in 1996-97 (Farrand's last Trek book was in 1996, and he stopped in response to a situation involving an unauthorized Godzilla book). Even the notorious Hal Schuster had a couple of unauthorized Trek books as late as 1997. Sam Ramer's Joy of Trek, the one that Paramount went after in a big way, was published by Citadel in 1997. They stomped on the publisher of Secret Fighting Arts of the Warrior Race Volume 1 - betleH yIqel in 1996, but that wasn't as big a story, because that book didn't have the kind of distribution Citadel's books did.

As did the fact that Paramount was still turning a blind eye to unauthorized Trek nonfiction books at that point. Fifteen years later, if that goodwill made a difference, the people involved are no longer around.

 

Yeah, I was pretty surprised that Viacom went after that book, having let so many other books go by. The idea was that it was everything you needed to know to get up to speed with Trek, presented with a lot of humour, but not that it was everything you needed, period. It was supposed to help bring people into fandom, which seems like a goal Viacom should have approved of.

 

First off, the Concordance is not exactly an unlicensed book. Bjo got the copyright to the Concordance back when Ballantine published it, which is why, when the update was published in '94, it was able to carry the words "Star Trek" in the title, as opposed one of James Van Hise's completely unauthorized and unlicensed books, that can only have "Trek (fill in the blank)". "Trek" is not a registered trademark of CBS/Paramount, whereas "Star Trek" is. Bjo's copyright allows her to use the full title.

And if she wants to keep that copyright, she needs to stick to the terms of that copyright, which only covers what I listed above, TOS, TAS, and subsequent appearances of those characters. So, only those movies and episodes from the spinoff shows can be touched.

As for why now, the Concordance has been a fan favorite, in its various incarnations, for forty years, because it comes from a fan's perspective, and is not just a historical recitation like the Encyclopedia. And frankly, the last version was a pretty big disappointment to Bjo and many of us who were involved in supplying material (the fan art is another big draw, which was largely eliminated by the clowns at Citadel). So, there's more than a small element of redemption here. If there's to be a last edition of the Concordance, we'd rather it not be the Citadel version.

And don't worry about my biases. As I said above, I'm not writing it. I'm only doing the layouts. I'm certainly capable of being a good soldier and doing what I'm told with regard to the material. Besides, in the end, we're only talking one movie in a book that covers over a hundred episodes of the various series and eight other movies. I'll certainly be willing to give Bjo my opinions of the film, since the polarizing nature of the thing certainly deserves some comment, but I'm not going to force my views into the book if she doesn't want them there; it's her book, not mine.

I refer you to my major edit of "The Doctor and the Enterprise". I wound up doing a lot of tightening up of verb tenses, inventing a few sentences here and there (in the original, for example, Kirk never identifies himself to the strange man emerging from the Police Box, so I stuck in a quick, "I'm Captain James T. Kirk. You're on the Starship Enterprise.") But for the most part, I kept as much of Jean Airey's original text as I could, especially in the planetside scenes (those passages just needed some well placed paragraph breaks for the most part).

Go and compare. My version is accessible by the "junk drawer" link in my signature, the original is here: http://www.scirev.net/who/archives/TheDoctorAndTheEnterprise.php

 

Dude, what ARE you talking about? The book isn't licensed, and it wouldn't need to be anyway. As a scholarly work, there's no need for it. And Bjo would always have the copyright, unless she signed it over to somebody else. She's not doing fanfiction; it's a reference book.

A lot of what you're saying just does not make sense.

 

Sounds to me like you're mixing up bits of copyright, licensing, and contract in there. Meanwhile, there are dozens of unauthorized, unlicensed books that have "Star Trek" in the title, though they're often more scholarly in intent than the books written by Van Hise and others for Hal Schuster's various imprints, and hence more protected. Some examples from the last year or two: Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek: Allegories of Desire in the Television Series and Films, Jewish Themes in Star Trek, Star Trek: A Comics History, Star Trek: A Post-Structural Critique of the Original Series, To Go Where No Other Has Gone Before: Gender and Race in Star Trek, BFI TV Classics: Star Trek, Star Trek and Philosophy: The Wrath of Kant, and, coming out in June 2010, Star Trek As Myth: Essays on Symbol and Archetype at the Final Frontier.

Whatever you're talking about in the paragraph above, it isn't copyright.

Um. Interesting. You rewrote someone else's book and posted it on your site?

I don't see where she's letting anyone create and distribute derivative works from her copyrighted (albeit unlicensed) material. Does she know you've done this?

 

Still her name on the byline. I'm not claiming it as my own work, just my polish of her's (which is why her forward is retained, it's her story). I think I made that abundantly clear in my forward on the very next page.

If Ms. Airey wants to take issue with it, I'm certainly not hiding. I'd welcome the chance to get her impressions of how I did, and if she wants changes, fine, let's talk. But personally, I think I did a pretty good job with that story, which is why I have it posted. So far, the reactions have been pretty positive.

Getting back to the Concordance, if Bjo wants to hold onto her baby, she needs to play by the rules, which means none of the spinoff stuff unless it touches on TOS, TAS, or one of the original cast movies. And unlike my reworking of "The Doctor and the Enterprise", this will be a collaborative work, with Bjo in very firm control of the text (even corrections of obvious mistakes will be run by her first).

So don't worry about any virulent anti-JJ screeds getting slipped in. I do enough of that here, I don't need to hijack someone else's book.

 

I'll have to dig up the previous published versions and compare.

I think one big difference in this case is that those previous versions never said anything about there being heavy editing taking place. Mine does. I'm very upfront about the fact that you're not getting the unexpurgated original text with my version.

Maybe Ms. Airey should ask why so many folks see the need to tweak her story. Maybe because it needs it?

Anyway, I suggest that any further discussion of this story be moved to "Fan Fiction". I've got a thread there on this subject that I can drag back from the abyss.

 

But Airey claims copyright on everything in the story she created, though obviously she can't claim any rights to Trek and Who names and characters. So you can't just take her work and do what you want with it. She's laid out the things she's allowing you to do, and they don't include what you've actually done. You haven't respected her rights to the material. You're talking a lot about what Bjo has the right to do, but you don't seem to be thinking -- or answering questions about -- what you have the right to do with someone else's work.

Her story is not your property to do with as you wish. I'm not sure what's so hard to understand about that.

What are these rules you're talking about? It's nothing to do with copyright, she's not working with the publisher with the license to do Trek books, so where are these rules laid out? Did someone in 1976 foresee the spinoffs and put some clause in her Ballantine contract about what she could do in the event of the reversion of her rights to the book? Did she get some kind of legal clearance from Paramount in 1995 for the Citadel edition? If so, would that apply to a new edition?

Two people aren't "so many." Hal Schuster had unauthorized changes made to her work because it was the only way he could cash in on an unlicensed Who/Trek crossover novel. The main changes in his edition were losing all the proper names (Kirk became the Captain, Scotty the Engineer, etc) and adding goofy cover and interior art and a back cover blurb to make the book look like a satire, because satire is protected speech. The book isn't satire, though. But the reason for the rewrite had nothing to do with Airey's writing and everything to do with Schuster wanting to make some easy money unethically.

I don't approve of what Schuster did, but at least I can understand his motives.

 

This has really gone down the rabbit hole a ways...