Star Trek Memories

by William Shatner, Chris Kreski

Overview

A living pop culture legend and one of American film and television's most enduring stars, William Shatner will forever be associated with the role of James T. Kirk, captain of the starship Enterprise. Star Trek Memories is Shatner's classic behind-the-scenes look at the legendary series that continues to put forth movies, books, and series spin-offs decades after the last episode aired. A television phenomenon that suffered from shaky ratings from its first broadcast in 1966 through its entire run, Star Trek nevertheless exploded into a worldwide, billion-dollar industry. Avid Trekkers who were onboard at the launch, as well as fans of the later Trek incarnations, will be delighted with this eye-opening, eminently fascinating "captain's log" from James Kirk himself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061664694
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/21/2009
Series:	Star Trek Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	497,661
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

William Shatner's career as an actor, director, producer, screenwriter, recording artist, author, and horseman has spanned more than fifty years. One of pop culture's most recognizable figures, he is also a major Hollywood philanthropist. Shatner and his wife and three married children live in Los Angeles.

Chris Kreski was a writer and consultant for MTV and a head writer of The Daily Show. He cowrote Star Trek Memories and Star Trek Movie Memories, as well as several other books with William Shatner.

Editorial Reviews

Finally, the Captain's Log that a zillion Trekkers have been waiting for. This isn't an omnibus Star Trek history. Shatner (a.k.a. Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise) and Kreski (editorial director of MTV) stick to Stardate mid-1960's and the original TV series, skipping both the Star Trek movies (presumably the subject of a future Shatner memoir) and the multiple series spinoffs. No matter; what remains is a fascinating account of network TV in its post-Beaver, pre-Bunker teenage years. Shatner works against his reputation for hogging the limelight (which he confronts head-on in the final chapter) by remaining off-camera for the first quarter of the text while recounting Gene Roddenberry's early Hollywood career and the making of the pilot, the "absolutely, incontrovertibly brilliant" The Cage. Tidbits tumble forth: at first Roddenberry envisioned a Captain Robert April at the helm of the USS Yorktown, with a half-Martian "satanic" Mr. Spock at his side. As the high concept took flesh, a fight arose among studio executives over Spock: How important should he be? What should his ears look like?—questions that attained even greater importance when, to everyone's bewilderment, the mind-melding Vulcan bested Kirk as the focus of the Trekker cult. Soon the rest of the cast signed on, along with ace producer Gene Coon, whom Shatner praises to the detriment of icon Roddenberry: "Roddenberry created Star Trek, and Coon made it fly." Shatner's favorite program ("The Devil in the Dark"), Leonard Nimoy's clashes with management, why laser-guns became "phasers": there's enough here to satiate the most avid Trekker, delivered with pop and pizazz. After just three years, atired cast called it quits, or so they thought. Today, Star Trek prospers, and so will this memoir—most probably at warp speed. ("Over 130 never-before-seen photographs"—not seen)

Kirkus Reviews