"Thrilling Wonder Stories", Volume 2 (2009) by Ian McLean, on Flickr
I first saw an entry for this exciting 2009 trade paperback volume of short stories, novellas, classic reprinted stories, and "Star Trek"-related articles on eBay, for a horrendous price and even more horrendous airmail postage. I saved the auction and several years later, it still hadn't sold. I kept a watch every so often and recently received notice from Amazon Prime Video that I could have the book for free postage to Australia, so I finally pounced.
How did I ever miss the promotions for this seemingly now-rare book, edited by Winston Engle? Most of the contributors in it have associations with "Star Trek"!
Stories are by David Gerrold (an advance extract, "Enterprise Fish", from a still-forthcoming novel in his "Chtorr" novel series), Diane Duane, David R George III, Michael Reaves & Steve Perry, Melinda M Snodgrass, Norman Spinrad, Larry Niven, Theodore Sturgeon, Harlan Ellison, Jerry Sohl and Richard Matheson.
A "Star Trek" pitch (George Clayton Johnson's "Rock-a-bye Baby, or Die!") and the original story of "Arena" (by Fredric Brown) are also included, although I do have these in other publications.
Trek-related articles include: "Where No Scribe Has Gone Before" by Marc Scott Zicree; "No Studio, No Network, No Problem" by Crystal Ann Taylor (about Trek fan films); and "I Canna Change the Laws of Physics" by Adam Weiner. Also "Scientifacts" by James Trefil; "Columbus of the Stars: A Trek Not Taken" (about a 1964 SF TV series pitch by Ib Melchior & Vic Lundin, who later played the first onscreen Klingon in TOS); "The Televisualizer" by Scott Ashlin; In Memoriams for Sir Arthur C Clarke & Forrest J Ackerman; the comic strip, "Dr Zotts" by Winston Engle; and reprinted snippets from NASA articles.
The front cover is by Bob Eggleton, who is married to a longtime Trek fandom colleague of mine, Marianne Plumridge. Back cover art by Don Anderson.
"Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2", back cover by Ian McLean, on Flickr
My curiosity about the existence of a Volume 1 (not Trek-related) was high but I could never find references online, only for many issues of the old "Thrilling Wonder Stories" magazine, but an ad for Volume 1's cover was actually in Volume 2, and so now I have this book coming soon. Much easier to find when you know what cover you're looking for:
"Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 1" promo (left) by Ian McLean, on Flickr
Accompanying George Clayton Johnson's old Trek episode pitch is art by Michael Okuda on page 215.
A fan film, "New Voyages: World Enough and Time", is covered in several places in the volume:
"Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2", pic of Takei, Zicree and Engle by Ian McLean, on Flickr
"Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2", pic of Katia Mangani by Ian McLean, on Flickr
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