• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

New 40th anniversary edition of ST:TMP novelisation?

Was there an edition actually printed in Australia? Because my Futura (UK) copy has an Australian price, so I assumed they were exported from the UK to AUS.

I have a UK reprint edition on hand, with the "Michelle" Nichols typo on the back cover and UK and Australian pricing info. My original version bought in December 1979 is currently in storage, but I am sure it's a local printing, and no "Michelle" typo.

It took three months for UK books to arrive Down Under (sea freight), so a local printing was the only way to meet December deadlines. And we had it in stores before the opening day of 21st December.
 
Between the TMP novelization and some of the background material for NextGen (like the description of Dr. Crusher and his thoughts on the Ferengi), I get the impression that Roddenberry would have happily made Star Trek porn if given the opportunity.
It takes a true visionary.

42542813961_f9a4577bdd_o.jpg
 
I have a UK reprint edition on hand, with the "Michelle" Nichols typo on the back cover and UK and Australian pricing info. My original version bought in December 1979 is currently in storage, but I am sure it's a local printing, and no "Michelle" typo.

Found one for sale on eBay.au that included a photo of the copyright page, and it was printed in Sydney.

Learn something new every day! Thanks!
 
This is so FRACKING HILARIOUS!!! :) Almost as bad as the Great Bird of The Galaxy thinking he has seeded the world like Ghengis Kahn. To quote Indiana Jones, "What a VIVID IMAGINATION!"

Hey Im a Trek fan and a Star Wars fan both, but this is just sleezy beyond sleeze.

But, to keep it on topic Alan Dean Foster did an awesome job on the novelization of TMP. Even though some discount TMP as a movie and a story, in my mind, if take away TMP you cant have TNG at all.

It's my hope that movie novelizations never ever die, because keep all the blu rays you want, no will ever have the in depth and the thoughts that come with a good authored novelization.

Just my humbled opinion. Have a happy Fourth of July! :)
-Koric
 
But, to keep it on topic Alan Dean Foster did an awesome job on the novelization of TMP.

Gene Roddenberry wrote the TMP novelization. The myth that Foster ghostwrote it is due to confusion about the fact that he wrote the story outline that the film was based on, as well as confusion with the 1977 Star Wars novelization that Foster ghostwrote under George Lucas's name. But to anyone familiar with Foster's writing style, the TMP novelization is clearly not his work. It's far too clumsy in its prose style to be the work of a veteran novelist like Foster, its authorial voice is quite different (more emotional/visceral than Foster's and not as fond of ornate vocabulary), and it employs stylistic devices (such as an overuse of italics/emphasis) that are similar to scriptwriting conventions, as one would expect of a screenwriter like Roddenberry working in prose for the first time. Its narration and focus also clearly reflect Roddenberry's style and priorities, e.g. in its utopian futurism and sexual themes.
 
(more emotional/visceral than Foster's and not as fond of ornate vocabulary)
You got that right! Definitely no references here to "look[ing] a gift zintar in the masticatory orifice" (STL9) or "put[ting] your truleg in your masticatory orifice" (Orphan Star)!

Nor does it have ADF's skill at crafting alien cultures, nor his flair for opening lines like "The Flinx was an ethical thief in that he stole only from the crooked" (The Tar-Aiym Krang; how's that for a first line of a first novel?) and "It's hard to be a larva." (Nor Crystal Tears), nor his sense of humor ("It's chimera chili, ma'am . . . . The recipe itself ain't too hard to work up. Hardest part's findin' chimera meat." ["Witchen Woes", a Mad Amos short story]).
 
Last edited:
The remarkable thing is that while the TMP novelization was hardly in the realm of great literature, it's still quite good, especially given that Roddenberry hadn't written a novel before, and hadn't written much prose fiction in years. Indeed, it was a good deal better (or at the very least, better Star Trek) than most of the Bantam-era novels, even those by seasoned authors.

I contrast it with another "first novel," marketed as science fiction, that I fervently wish I could un-read. It is so unspeakably bad that I will not mention the title or author, only that I am truly amazed that it ever made it into the bookstores, let alone that both a sequel and a prequel managed to do so as well. (It makes Marshak & Culbreath's ST novels seem downright literary, by comparison.) If I could ever bring myself to burn a book, this opus I refuse to name by title would be the one; the only reason it is still on my shelf is that I don't want it back in circulation on the used market, inflicting itself upon other unsuspecting readers. And just writing this post gave me a few ideas of how to reclaim the shelf space without discarding it, and without giving it the appearance of being a "guilty pleasure" (guilty, perhaps, but no pleasure).
 
Last edited:
Why won't say what book it is? Is the author someone who posts here you don't want to offend?
 
No, because I don't want to sully this forum, and I don't want to give him any free advertising.
Something about this reminds me of a shrinkwrapped book I stumbled upon on a cliffside a couple months ago (well, I saw it from above; I didn't notice it was shrinkwrapped until I looked at my photos later). I'd assumed from the title ("The Hope We Seek") and cover that it was some kind of new-age annotated Bible, but once I saw it was wrapped up and realized someone just hand't stashed their beach-reading somewhere, I looked it up. It's a profoundly odd-sounding sci-fi-ish novel that the author elected to market by just leaving copies around colleges and, I guess, the ruins of early 20th-century spas. And, on-topic, the synopsis sounds a bit like if someone were doing a Funky-Flashman-style parody of Roddenberry's trashier dramatic interests and philosophical self-aggrandizement.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top