Did they ever release The God Thing?

[Steve Roby]

One thing I'm not sure about is how many of the writers, if any, were working on a version that had already been worked on by one of the other writers, or if they were all starting with the same set of pages by Roddenberry only. I'm not sure each new person brought in to work on it was even aware that others had been involved at various points. From a copyright perspective I'd expect that, for example, Michael Jan Friedman wouldn't have been given Walter Koenig's pages, because Koenig could say, hey, wait a minute, some of that's mine. But this whole chain of events didn't really happen in a particularly well organized way.

i should have tried to do a timeline for the God Thing page. It looks almost as if Friedman was working on it at around the same time as Susan Sackett was working on it. I wonder if I ever tried asking former Pocket editor Dave Stern about it. He might not have felt free to discuss the situation, but he'd be able to clear some of this up, if he remembers. He's on LinkedIn, if anyone wants to try asking him....

 

[drt]

One thing I'm not sure about is how many of the writers, if any, were working on a version that had already been worked on by one of the other writers, or if they were all starting with the same set of pages by Roddenberry only. I'm not sure each new person brought in to work on it was even aware that others had been involved at various points. From a copyright perspective I'd expect that, for example, Michael Jan Friedman wouldn't have been given Walter Koenig's pages, because Koenig could say, hey, wait a minute, some of that's mine. But this whole chain of events didn't really happen in a particularly well organized way.

While I get the sense that a “lost Roddenberry novel” would probably sell, this thing has been through so many revisions by different people, that the copyrights and properly attributing who exactly wrote what has to be a giant mess, which is probably the biggest barrier to its publication.

 

[Steve Roby]

That would be a concern. Then there's the Roddenberry estate, which was evidently a complication after Roddenberry died. A God Thing novel would require the estate, Paramount licencing, and the publisher to pull in the same direction, and that reportedly wasn't happening.

 

[Daddy Todd]

the copyrights and properly attributing who exactly wrote what has to be a giant mess, which is probably the biggest barrier to its publication.

Unless they discard all the work done by those other hands, and go back to the script draft by Roddenberry, and novelize just that. Which would be a short book, and, as I understand it, would cover some ground similar to what The Motion Picture covered. That was one of the challenges past efforts to novelize this story faced -- how to make the story unique, by changing elements that are too similar to TMP.

So, it's not a simple or straightforward process. A more interesting approach might be to publish a book containing Roddenberry's script draft (or drafts, if multiple drafts have survived) and the various attempts to to novelize the script. Something more like Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever book, rather than a novel. That wouldn't solve the copyright tangle, but might be a more interesting book.

 

[Steve Roby]

Including other unproduced movie scripts might help.

 

[BobbyPeru1]

Going back to the original material, even as it covered some familiar ground, worked for the Tolkien estate when they released the "Book of Lost Tales" - it had proto versions of what later appeared in "The Silmarillion"

 

[Saul]

This is utterly fascinating. I hope it will emerge in some form.

 

[Therin of Andor]

First mention of Gene Roddenberry's proposed "The God Thing" storyline as a novel. Article in "Newsday", Feb 20, 1977, by Joseph Gelnis:


Feb 20 1977 by Ian McLean, on Flickr

Bantam, of course, was soon to lose the "Star Trek" book license to Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

First mention of Gene Roddenberry's proposed "The God Thing" storyline as a novel. Article in "Newsday", Feb 20, 1977, by Joseph Gelnis:

I'm sure Bantam will get right on publishing that, just as soon as Roddenberry delivers the manuscript. Though, I have to wonder -- which long-overdue book will Bantam receive from the author first, Roddenberry's The God-Thing or Martin's The Winds of Winter?

 

[The Wormhole]

I'm sure Bantam will get right on publishing that, just as soon as Roddenberry delivers the manuscript. Though, I have to wonder -- which long-overdue book will Bantam receive from the author first, Roddenberry's The God-Thing or Martin's The Winds of Winter?

My money's actually on The God Thing.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm sure Bantam will get right on publishing that, just as soon as Roddenberry delivers the manuscript. Though, I have to wonder -- which long-overdue book will Bantam receive from the author first, Roddenberry's The God-Thing or Martin's The Winds of Winter?

Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath supposedly sold "Mr Spock's Guide to the Planet Vulcan" to Bantam, too, but it was abandoned when Bantam's contract ran out, and it was again announced as forthcoming (in "Locus", IIRC) from Pocket Books, but it never materialized.

 

[publiusr]

Well, crap.

 

[Steve Roby]

View attachment 35949 View attachment 35949 View attachment 35949

First mention of Gene Roddenberry's proposed "The God Thing" storyline as a novel. Article in "Newsday", Feb 20, 1977, by Joseph Gelnis:

Bantam, of course, was soon to lose the "Star Trek" book license to Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books.

But at least Bantam got to do a novelization of Spectre, the Roddenberry TV movie mentioned in the article. Ballantine published a novelization of The Questor Tapes a few years earlier. Shame there were no Genesis II/Planet Earth novelizations. They could have done a series of those, based on the unfilmed scripts for sale from Lincoln Enterprises/Star Trek Enterprises.



Note to mods: that's my scan of my copy of the book from my website as archived at the Internet Archive.

 

[Therin of Andor]

But at least Bantam got to do a novelization of Spectre, the Roddenberry TV movie mentioned in the article. Ballantine published a novelization of The Questor Tapes a few years earlier.

Indeed! I have two different covers for "The Questor Tapes". I read that novelization before ever seeing the telemovie. Loved both.

I just did a search on author of "Spectre", Robert Weverka. He also did novelisations of the TV series, "The Waltons". The first one that just popped up was a German translation, headed "Die Waltons" in large letters. Sounds grim!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Sondra Marshak & Myrna Culbreath supposedly sold "Mr Spock's Guide to the Planet Vulcan" to Bantam, too, but it was abandoned when Bantam's contract ran out, and it was again announced as forthcoming (in "Locus", IIRC) from Pocket Books, but it never materialized.

Less Marshak and Culbreath writing in the world can only be a good thing, IMO.

 

[Steve Roby]

Then there was their Uhura book, to be written with Nichelle Nichols.

I used to have a lot of fun doing the Lost Books part of my old Star Trek books website. Scrolling through it now, I see some that finally did appear, like Preston Jones's book on TMP and the newspaper comic strip collections.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Then there was their Uhura book, to be written with Nichelle Nichols.

I used to have a lot of fun doing the Lost Books part of my old Star Trek books website. Scrolling through it now, I see some that finally did appear, like Preston Jones's book on TMP and the newspaper comic strip collections.

I assume Nichelle’s “Beyond Uhura” autobiography was her finally breaking away from M&C.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I used to have a lot of fun doing the Lost Books part of my old Star Trek books website.

I used to have enormous fun reading the Lost Books part of your old website. And the rest, for that matter. It was great!

 

[Steve Roby]

Thanks. It was a lot of fun for a few years there.

 

[Greg Cox]

View attachment 35949 View attachment 35949 View attachment 35949

But at least Bantam got to do a novelization of Spectre, the Roddenberry TV movie mentioned in the article. Ballantine published a novelization of The Questor Tapes a few years earlier. Shame there were no Genesis II/Planet Earth novelizations. They could have done a series of those, based on the unfilmed scripts for sale from Lincoln Enterprises/Star Trek Enterprises.

View attachment 35950

Note to mods: that's my scan of my copy of the book from my website as archived at the Internet Archive.

Boy, is that SPECTRE cover working overtime to resemble the original paperback edition of THE EXORCIST or what?