Voyages of imagination question

[Smitty]

In flipping through this I noticed that a handful of authors "declined to be interviewed" about their books. Why would an author skip being a part of it? I understand if they were out or something but I suspect that there was more to it than that.

Ps-if I or someone asked this previously I apologize. The search function of the website does not work properly in an iPad (I blame apple not trekbbs)

 

[DS9forever]

I'm sure some authors would rather forget some of the Star Trek novels they wrote. Maybe others just didn't have time.

My biggest disappointment in Voyages of Imagination was that there are no comments from Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe on Legends of the Ferengi, one of the funniest Star Trek books ever.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The authors I most missed comments from were Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. But a while later I read an interview with them elsewhere which covered everything. If only I could remember where I read it...

Oh, and I wish Jeff Ayers called Marshak and Culbreath on the thinly veiled K/S in their novels!

 

[Greg Cox]

I imagine there are as many different answers as there are authors who declined to take part . . . .

 

[Stevil2001]

The authors I most missed comments from were Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens. But a while later I read an interview with them elsewhere which covered everything. If only I could remember where I read it...

There's an interview with them in the intro to the Worlds in Collision omnibus, I believe.

My main disappointment with VoI is that Ayres didn't dig up other interviews with people like the Reeves-Stevenses. Surely there's information out there. (Or even for people who did do interviews but weren't super-forthcoming.)

 

[F. King Daniel]

That's the one! Worlds in Collision. Thanks

 

[Corran Horn]

I think it was posited at the time that, at least for the Shatner books, they declined to speak because the subject of 'who did what' would come out. Don't know if that's accurate or not though.

 

[DorkBoy [TM]]

That sounds unlikely to me. They have answered the question of "who did what" plenty of times for plenty of other interviews.

 

[js]

My biggest disappointment in Voyages of Imagination was that there are no comments from Ira Behr and Robert Wolfe on Legends of the Ferengi, one of the funniest Star Trek books ever.

I worked with the guys on Legends of the Ferengi - did some proofing/editing on it before it was sent over to the publisher and even got to contribute a joke or two - that's how I met the Pocket Books folks and wound up working on my own books for them.

Was there something you specifically wanted to know about Legends? I can try to recall something if possible.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I think it was posited at the time that, at least for the Shatner books, they declined to speak because the subject of 'who did what' would come out. Don't know if that's accurate or not though.

Huh? "Who did what" has never been a secret. (Well, except earlier, when SF author Ron Goulart was described as a person Shatner "couldn't have done without".) It's certainly not why the Reeves-Stevenses declined to be interviewed in VoI. Shatner himself has described in interviews (eg. "Starlog") how he plots his novels (and composes all Kirk dialogue) by speaking into a dictaphone as he goes through an otherwise normal day. He passes on the tapes to his own clerical assistant, who prepares a manuscript. Shatner then passes it on to his co-writers (Ron Goulart for "TekWar", the Reeves-Stevenses for the ST Shatnerverse, etc). They prepare the novel around his framework, correct it for science fiction elements, and it passes back to Shatner for further tweaking. And so on.

Seemingly, the Reeves-Stevenses had a problem with Pocket around the time VoI came out. Jeff Ayers got caught in the middle and they were unable to speak with him. There was supposed to be a newly-written introduction to the 2006 MMPB reprint of "Federation", but that new material was suddenly dropped. They promised that the introduction would eventually appear online at http://www.reeves-stevens.com/startrekshopchoose.html, but I'm not sure it ever did.

 

[JD]

Yeah, and either Shatner or the editor of the books (I can't remember for sure which it was and VOI isn't within reach at the moment) talked in detail about how the books were put together in Voyages of the Imagination.

 

[Corran Horn]

I could be wrong, of course.

 

[Christopher]

^Well, all you said was that it was posited that that was the case, and you're probably quite right that somebody posited that. But whoever it was who posited that was dead wrong.