Thursday, October 30, 2008

Thursday Preview: Enterprise Fish

(click on thumbnail for full-size image)

As you may have gathered from the banner ad, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 focuses on the writers of TV's various Star Trek series who are also known for their work in prose fiction.

Most of them, like last week's preview subject Harlan Ellison, were well-known in literary science fiction before making the move to television.

David Gerrold is something of an exception.  He hadn't yet made his name in literary SF when he sold his original series teleplay "The Trouble with Tribbles"... which makes the sale all the more impressive.  A Richard Matheson or a Theodore Sturgeon had a reputation on both page and screen to get him in the door.  Gerrold was just a college student with enthusiasm and a great idea.  (And was canny enough to get college credit for his script assignment, on top of a paycheck.)  The reputation came later.

For TWS2, he brings us an exclusive excerpt from A Time for Treason, the upcoming sixth volume in the War Against the Chtorr series.  "Enterprise Fish" works well as a standalone, and— like the Editor —you don't have to have read the novels to understand it.  But it may well persuade you— like the Editor —to catch up on what you've been missing.

The illustration is by Mishi McCaig.  Her father, Star Wars prequel designer Iain McCaig, created the cover of Volume 1, and artistic talent obviously runs in the family.  They worked together on "World Enough and Time," the episode of Star Trek New Voyages that we cover in detail in Volume 2.

If you'd like to use the jpg file for your own blog or website, go ahead, as long as you leave the file intact.

No comments: