Review of 'Star Trek Lives!'

Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston

“Star Trek Lives” is written by three authors who played significant roles in the establishment of Star Trek fandom as we know it today. Joan Winston helped organize the first Star Trek convention, Sondra Marshak wrote and published Star Trek fan fiction while Jacqueline Lichtenberg is also an author herself. This book is an interesting bit of Star Trek history having been written after the original series aired on television but before the first film was produced, attempting to capture the spirit of early fandom with a mixture of essays on various aspects of fan fiction, including it's history, interviews with the cast and crew, and Winston's amazing report from the set of the Star Trek TV series on it's last days of filming.

The focus here is very much on the writing that fans were doing to keep the spirit of Star Trek alive following it's cancellation but it often feels like it is trying a trifle too hard, in particular the lengthy chapters (presumably by Marshak) – the various “effect” chapters – where there seems to be an air of justification and finding deeper meaning in the work of fans rather than simply enjoying it for what it is. I am not entirely convinced there is more deeper meaning than people simply wanting to express their love of the series so looking for more existential aspects is, while interesting, not entirely the point. Indeed, I found these expositionary chapters very boring and repetitive so not exactly doing a brilliant service in justifying the genre the authors wish to support.

A rather dull and ultimately disappointing story of the early days of Star Trek fandom. Probably of interest only to seriously die-hard fans of classic Trek.

Rating: “Not great, but not the worse”

Review Date: 2022-05-08

Genre: Non-Fiction

Publisher: Bantam Books

Publication Date: 1975