Those Blish books were home video before there WAS home video. Even the Fotonovels were a still thing of the future.I read a lot of the Blish books while also watching TOS reruns, Sometimes my memories of the episodes are "tainted" by Blish.
gen Y and millennial are the same thing, they just changed the name, although there is a sub-generation i am part of that covers mid 70s to mid 80s called X-ennial, that has a pretty unique experience.
I was young, but I remember being in elementary school watching TOS re-runs, the premiere of TNG, reading all the books and anything i could get from the library, all the early novels, best of Trek, early concordance books, bantam stuff, etc, so even though i'm not quite what the thread is talking about, i can completely relate.
(I was 8 when TVH came out and NOT watching, but was 11 when TFF came out, clearly remember it in the theater, and was already heavily into books/models/comics/VHS tapes by that point, knowing more minutiae and trivia than most adults, and annoyed a lot of people that way.) By the time the 25th anniversary explosion started happening, i was FIRMLY established lol.
Last edited:
I used to buy 120 minute audio cassettes and tape episodes off the TV so I could listen later with headphones and catch what I missed. Those disappeared long, long ago.
Spock Must Die felt important, it was the first book written about Trek that was a new story instead of the various cast/crew/con books, fan-fiction collections and the TOS/TAS novelizations which were all I was aware of. That felt like Trek hadn't died.
Then TMP happened, for better and for worse.
Spock Must Die felt important, it was the first book written about Trek that was a new story instead of the various cast/crew/con books, fan-fiction collections and the TOS/TAS novelizations which were all I was aware of. That felt like Trek hadn't died.
Then TMP happened, for better and for worse.
The time they Enterprise went to do medical supplies of Robert and Nancy Bierce of the "crater campsite" - which wasn't named after a person, it was just in a crater - on Regulus VIII in the episode "The Unreal McCoy"? Or when Commodore Brand Decker took command of the Enterprise to fight the Planet Killer and apologized to Kirk at the end before he went home to face charges? Fun days.I read a lot of the Blish books while also watching TOS reruns, Sometimes my memories of the episodes are "tainted" by Blish.
That's what I always thought. Then during the Internet era, it emerged that Spock Must Die was really the second original novel, after Mission to Horatius. The trouble was, Horatius never made it to the little bookstore I haunted. Or maybe it cycled through the paperback ecosystem before I was able to bike around town and go to stores on my own, circa 1972 when I was ten.
Come to think of it, I had to special order Spock Must Die and Blish book one. 1972 was late to the party.
It never made it to any of the bookstores near me. SMD was the first novel I was aware of living in Hot Springs.
Or when Spock simply blew up the Romulan Bird of Prey, whose commander we never talked to. Or, especially, when they went to the flying-pancake home planet and physically destroyed it.
I was a bit late to the party, but due to me living in Germany, I was lucky enough to make some of these "good old days" experiences a few years later, as it took a while for Star Trek to arrive here:
For example, I experienced the very first run of many TOS episodes. The first run on German tv, that is ... that was in late 1987 (a first chunk of 39 had been aired in Germany 1972-74, but the remaining 39 -- all but "Patterns of Force" -- didn't premiere here before 1987/88). TNG didn't start here before September 1990.
So I was a TOS fan at first, since late 1987, unaware that TNG even existed. Without a VCR, I would record the audio of TOS episodes onto audio cassettes.
Here in West-Berlin, there was the AFN tv station for the US army stationed here, but since it was in NTSC format, I could only watch it in black/white and without sound on our PAL tv. It had TOS on every saturday morning, and I would see many episodes for the first time there -- without sound. Some episodes became legends for me this way.
The Blish novelizations were among the first books I read from start to end as a kid. And I would collect all kinds of other stuff on flea markets, like comic books and trading cards.
I first learnt there were TOS movies, when the only pay tv cable channel in Germany at that time aired ST IV in spring 1989. Although my family had no subscription, that didn't keep me from "watching" the encrypted movie nevertheless -- the audio was good enough and the picture only partially distorted, due to the analog encryption, and what I didn't see only further triggered my imagination. ST V was finally the first ST movie I watched at the cinema.
When I first came across TNG on AFN (in b/w and without sound), in late 1989 or early 1990, I assumed it was a TOS remake, and Riker was supposed to be the new Kirk. I wrote letters to all relevant tv stations, asking if they would air it, and got a reply by the ZDF station in early 1990 that they would start TNG later that year, which totally amazed me.
Eventually, my parents had bought a VCR, so I recorded TNG from the start, but no TOS re-runs were on German tv in West-Berlin between late 1988 and January 1992, and during that period, I would collect and gather even the tiniest piece of Star Trek I could get.
It was like heaven on earth when I met an older boy in the neighborhood, who had taped many TOS episodes on VCR and would copy them for me, in exchange for providing him with our VCR for three weeks. That way, I got my hands on about 35 TOS episodes, many of which I hadn't known before.
In 1991, I collected the "25th Anniversary" trading cards, imported from the US by a couple running a comic book store (where I would also get old second hand ST comic books from the 70s).
Finally, there was a complete TOS rerun in 1992, when I could finally tape the episodes I hadn't had on tape before ... and TNG was running parallel (its 2nd and 3rd season at that time in Germany), which meant "new" Star Trek episodes for me 3 times a week.
Around that time, I joined a fan club, that had a monthly fanzine, where I would read news about Star Trek for the first time, slowly becoming aware how amazing the fandom was. They also had fan fiction and fan art for mail order.
For me, these years between 1988 and 1992, marked by very scarce new Trek content for me, and this scarcity just increasing my craving, may have been "the golden age of Star Trek" for me.
The absolute peak would be 1994, though: The private station SAT1 picked up Star Trek and aired 95 of the 178 TNG episodes for the first time in Germany, daily from Monday to Friday, plus the first two seasons of DS9 and another TOS re-run -- and I still totally enjoyed every bit of this new content, Trek was still getting better and better.
In fact, as long as Star Trek was just TOS, TNG and DS9, I loved all of it ... the point when the tides changed, and I felt it became "too much" and losing quality, was in mid 1996 for me -- when VOY aired in Germany, the first Trek show I felt was a big step backwards, after it had been progressing all the years before.
Until around March 1996, when DS9 season 3 aired for the first time in Germany and "Patterns of Force" was released on VHS, which allowed me to complete TOS, it was a given for me that I basically enjoy every new Star Trek content -- I loved all of it.
For example, I experienced the very first run of many TOS episodes. The first run on German tv, that is ... that was in late 1987 (a first chunk of 39 had been aired in Germany 1972-74, but the remaining 39 -- all but "Patterns of Force" -- didn't premiere here before 1987/88). TNG didn't start here before September 1990.
So I was a TOS fan at first, since late 1987, unaware that TNG even existed. Without a VCR, I would record the audio of TOS episodes onto audio cassettes.
Here in West-Berlin, there was the AFN tv station for the US army stationed here, but since it was in NTSC format, I could only watch it in black/white and without sound on our PAL tv. It had TOS on every saturday morning, and I would see many episodes for the first time there -- without sound. Some episodes became legends for me this way.
The Blish novelizations were among the first books I read from start to end as a kid. And I would collect all kinds of other stuff on flea markets, like comic books and trading cards.
I first learnt there were TOS movies, when the only pay tv cable channel in Germany at that time aired ST IV in spring 1989. Although my family had no subscription, that didn't keep me from "watching" the encrypted movie nevertheless -- the audio was good enough and the picture only partially distorted, due to the analog encryption, and what I didn't see only further triggered my imagination. ST V was finally the first ST movie I watched at the cinema.
When I first came across TNG on AFN (in b/w and without sound), in late 1989 or early 1990, I assumed it was a TOS remake, and Riker was supposed to be the new Kirk. I wrote letters to all relevant tv stations, asking if they would air it, and got a reply by the ZDF station in early 1990 that they would start TNG later that year, which totally amazed me.
Eventually, my parents had bought a VCR, so I recorded TNG from the start, but no TOS re-runs were on German tv in West-Berlin between late 1988 and January 1992, and during that period, I would collect and gather even the tiniest piece of Star Trek I could get.
It was like heaven on earth when I met an older boy in the neighborhood, who had taped many TOS episodes on VCR and would copy them for me, in exchange for providing him with our VCR for three weeks. That way, I got my hands on about 35 TOS episodes, many of which I hadn't known before.
In 1991, I collected the "25th Anniversary" trading cards, imported from the US by a couple running a comic book store (where I would also get old second hand ST comic books from the 70s).
Finally, there was a complete TOS rerun in 1992, when I could finally tape the episodes I hadn't had on tape before ... and TNG was running parallel (its 2nd and 3rd season at that time in Germany), which meant "new" Star Trek episodes for me 3 times a week.
Around that time, I joined a fan club, that had a monthly fanzine, where I would read news about Star Trek for the first time, slowly becoming aware how amazing the fandom was. They also had fan fiction and fan art for mail order.
For me, these years between 1988 and 1992, marked by very scarce new Trek content for me, and this scarcity just increasing my craving, may have been "the golden age of Star Trek" for me.
The absolute peak would be 1994, though: The private station SAT1 picked up Star Trek and aired 95 of the 178 TNG episodes for the first time in Germany, daily from Monday to Friday, plus the first two seasons of DS9 and another TOS re-run -- and I still totally enjoyed every bit of this new content, Trek was still getting better and better.
In fact, as long as Star Trek was just TOS, TNG and DS9, I loved all of it ... the point when the tides changed, and I felt it became "too much" and losing quality, was in mid 1996 for me -- when VOY aired in Germany, the first Trek show I felt was a big step backwards, after it had been progressing all the years before.
Until around March 1996, when DS9 season 3 aired for the first time in Germany and "Patterns of Force" was released on VHS, which allowed me to complete TOS, it was a given for me that I basically enjoy every new Star Trek content -- I loved all of it.
Last edited:
As mentioned, WPIX channel 11 in NY ran Trek reruns every day at 6PM in the 70s. It was the perfect excuse for me to escape dinner table tensions (my mother's father had moved in with us, and my Dad hated him). So I retreated to the living room with my plate and ate at a tray table, watching Trek. Dad hated that too
Your Dad just hated that you had an exit strategy!
Flaming
Thank you for being exactly the kind of jerk-face I was complaining about. I'm glad to see my concerns validated.
"Xenial" is what people have been forced to call GenY to get people like you to accept it's a real identity. I suppose I should be happy that you even acknowledge it exists, but all I see is another self-important dick trying to tell me what my identity is instead of just calling me what I want to be called.
I'm not saying its not a real identity - its a unique subset and experience; i have nothing in common with older gen x'ers, and think the "x-ennial" experience is a bit longer than traditionally accepted ('77-'83), and personally think that its about a 10 year block of its own between Gen X and Millennials running from around '76-'85. I firmly dis-associate with both other groups.
I just haven't found any evidence that Y was ever anything other than the same block given to millennials, and millennials was apparently coined in literature in the mid 80s, while all of us that weren't reading scientific literature colloquially called it Gen Y, and in the late 90s one term overtook the other, to capitalize on the whole millennium thing.
(1978 here.)
Disagree. I was born in 1976. I am just Gen X. That's it. No sub-generation. The generation that came after me, of which my wife is a part (having been born in 1984), is Gen Y or Millennial, which are just two different names for the same generation. There's nothing in between.
Thats why its a subset of both (X)-(ennial) but has a difference experience than the mainline generations - I have absolutely nothing in common with a 1960s Gen X-er. Its an officially recognized thing. Its the cusp on both sides creating something different and unique. The main trait is the bridge between the analog world and the digital world, starting life in one era and graduating into another.
Xennials - Wikipedia
With two "fully armed planet-wreckers." Those novelizations were pretty wild. If these first books really were indicative of the earlier drafts, Star Trek would have been a totally different thing without the constant re-writes.
Not sure what happened here, or why this is so contentious, but this is clearly flaming. Warned as such.
1001001 - Your Gen X Admin.
Yea, and it's not just you. Having been born in 1960, I have never really felt like a Boomer either, given that most of the defining events of that generation (Howdy Doody, Woodstock, etc) happened before I was even a teenager. Hell, the Beatles had already broken up before I turned 10.Thats why its a subset of both (X)-(ennial) but has a difference experience than the mainline generations - I have absolutely nothing in common with a 1960s Gen X-er. Its an officially recognized thing. Its the cusp on both sides creating something different and unique. The main trait is the bridge between the analog world and the digital world, starting life in one era and graduating into another.
Xennials - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
We have been called Generation Jones, Baby X, Boomerex, and Trailing-edge Boomers by the academics when discussing this phenomenon of being on the cusp.
All these generation labels are just that, labels. I'm not a fan of labeling, it's just another tool to divide people, and we are all just people.
Anyway, yeah. I liked the old days, when TOS and TAS and the books were the only things we had to fire the imagination. When I was in elementary school in... 1973 or 1974 I suppose, the school library had the Blish books for some reason. Even then I'd seen all the episodes multiple times and noticed the difference in the novelizations, but it was something interesting and different.
Oh, also, while I didn't buy them, around 1976 the Estes model rocket company came out with both Enterprise and Klingon Battlecruiser model rockets. I'm not entirely sure how those were supposed to work. Anyone remember or have those?
Anyway, yeah. I liked the old days, when TOS and TAS and the books were the only things we had to fire the imagination. When I was in elementary school in... 1973 or 1974 I suppose, the school library had the Blish books for some reason. Even then I'd seen all the episodes multiple times and noticed the difference in the novelizations, but it was something interesting and different.
Oh, also, while I didn't buy them, around 1976 the Estes model rocket company came out with both Enterprise and Klingon Battlecruiser model rockets. I'm not entirely sure how those were supposed to work. Anyone remember or have those?
Similar threads
