(click on thumbnail for full-size image)All of the stories in Thrilling Wonder Stories, Volume 2 are by writers from the televised iterations of Star Trek. But this is the only one that actually started out there.
George Clayton Johnson was well-known as a television writer by 1966. He worked on seven episodes of The Twilight Zone, including the classic "Kick the Can." He was no doubt an obvious choice to pitch to Star Trek as soon as NBC picked up the series.
One of his pitches, "The Unreal McCoy," was sold, produced as the fourth episode of the first season, and had the distinction of airing as the series premiere on September 8, 1966 under the title "The Man Trap."
But not all pitches can be so lucky. Writers usually come in with several ideas, some fully worked-out plots, some just one-line concepts. This week's preview is the first page (and, appropriately enough, the teaser) of another of Johnson's pitches, which he first published in his book All of Us Are Dying in 1999.
Johnson wrote only one episode for Star Trek, but the next year saw the publication of his most famous work, the novel Logan's Run, written with William F. Nolan, which became a popular 1976 movie and short-lived 1977 TV series. The on-again, off-again development of a feature remake is currently on again for a 2010 release.
For the Thrilling Wonder Stories presentation of "Rock-a-Bye Baby, or Die!" we have a Star Trek two-fer. The illustration is by Michael Okuda, scenic artist on all of the series and movies from 1987 to 2005, and co-author of several reference books about Trek.
(If you'd like to use the jpg file for your own blog or website, go ahead, as long as you leave the file, with all credits and copyrights, intact.)
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