Still Trekking After Fifty Years

Thursday, September 8, 2016, was the anniversary of the day the first episode of Star Trek aired. I watched that episode ("The Man Trap") with my father, who was the other science fiction fan in my family. I was 12 years old, and my dad was the reason I got into science fiction. I had already been reading his collection of science fiction and fantasy books that I found on the bookshelves in our basement.

Dad had brought home our first color television set just the week before. I don't know if the two events are related (as a twelve-year-old I didn't pay attention to commercials until after Star Trek started), but I did save the TV Guide pages. When I look at those and at the promo commercials for Star Trek in general on Youtube now and see "In Color" as a main mention, I strongly suspect that those might have influenced my dad's buying decision.

Star Trek made a huge impression on me. The multicultural bridge crew, the fact that both men and women were part of the crew, and the overall positive view of the future spoke to me. Imagining ourselves as part of the Star Trek universe joined the spy stories and Western stories my friends and I made up and played in our backyards. One of the early science fiction stories I wrote as a teen has a definite Star Trek influence, as I had abandoned the idea of chemical rockets for engines similar to those in that universe.

I've been a fan of Star Trek for years, loving the books, the animated series (43rd anniversary of that series), the films and the various spin-offs as they came along. Though I did lose interest partway through Star Trek: Enterprise and I decided after the 2009 film that I didn't need to follow that alternate universe.

With that background in mind, I'm excited to announce that I'm part of this collection of new essays about Star Trek. My essay is about first season episode "The Devil In The Dark", which has my favorite alien in the entire series. Outside In Boldly Goes will be 352 pages, paperback, $19.95, available in late October 2016.

Outside In Boldly Goes can be pre-ordered at ATB Publishing and the link can be found on this page with the table of contents.