I was recently given this assignment: write something, about why I love STAR TREK. I don’t know if this will be an easy task, as there are probably more reasons than you care to know about, but…I’m going to try to give it my best shot. I mean, what have I got to lose (Besides readers…)? It can only help me, learn more about who I am, and it gives you (unfortunate audience) an opportunity to find out what makes me such a geek. So, hey, fellow-nerds (if you are reading this, then yes, the ‘red shirt’ fits) here’s the low-down…

My ‘love’ started, I guess, when I was a 3-month-old baby, as STAR TREK premiered in September 1966; that’s the year I ‘premiered’, too. I started researching this article by calling my Mom… Why not? She was there, plus it gave me another chance to let her know she raised a nerd…right? My mother says she wasn’t a big fan of that kind of thing, (she loved soap-operas; DARK SHADOWS was more her ‘bag’), but she does remember watching STAR TREK in-passing; She told me she remembers Shatner and, “…that other one-I can’t remember what his goofy name is, Eric. The Vulcan, or-whatever he is…” being in it. I don’t know if she meant Nimoy or Spock and I didn’t press the issue.

She seems to recall, also, my late-father watching STAR TREK in my first years of life, as well. Mom worked evenings in the gift-wrapping department at JC Penney, and Dad was in the Navy, so he was quite often doing tours-of-duty in the ‘Med’, aboard the USS Shangri-La. Dad had to have loved STAR TREK, being on a ship himself… right? Plus, one of the last birthday gifts my Dad gave me was an oversized TV GUIDE ‘Collector’s Edition’, with Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway on the cover; ST: VOYAGER had just-started its first season.

Because of their schedules though, we stayed over at my Uncle Lester and Aunt Evie’s house a lot, and I can see my Uncle Lester being a geek as his garage had the biggest Lionel train-set I’ve ever seen (well, besides the one in Superman Returns, that is). So it’s conceivable that STAR TREK was on the TV every week at their house. I mean, come on. It had to have been ingrained into the gray-matter of my young mind somewhere in those first-few years…

I don’t remember ‘watching’ Kirk, Spock, Bones and the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 myself until the early 70’s; you see, that’s when ST: TAS came out. I do remember, vividly, watching those Saturday-morning STAR TREK cartoons at our house on Riverdale Road,in Jacksonville, Florida. I was only 6 or 7 years old, but WOW, I was glued to that set, ya know. STAR TREK and Super Friends, Speed Buggy, Scooby Doo, The Shazam/Isis Power Hour…they were constants for me. I couldn’t get enough of ’em! That was right about the time that The Six Million Dollar Man premiered, too, (and I know for a fact that Dad watched that with Mom – she had loved Lee Majors as Heath Barkley on The Big Valley, and then more still as “Steve Austin, astronaut… A man barely alive…” I was right there with them as well…riveted.

“I AM Steve Austin!” Er…I was then, at least. Nowadays, I could use quite-a-few BIONIC replacements…

It wasn’t until I graduated from high school that I became enamoured with ST: TOS. It came on every weeknight at 6 o’clock. Yes, it was cheesy, and the costumes and makeup were horrible,

but…I was hooked! I loved everything about it, including the cheesiness, ridiculous costumes and makeup! The stories were superb, mostly well-written and highly provocative in their social commentary (Besides, what guy doesn’t dream of hurtling through the stars in a tin-can, with a bunch of ‘hot’ mini-skirted space babes, eh..? For all of his over-acting, Shat’ always always got the girl). All I knew was we were ‘out there’, boldly going ‘where no man has gone before’! Seeing those aliens and those ‘strange new worlds’ only reinforced my beliefs, that we are not alone in this big-ol’ universe. That, yes, we can overcome our petty squabbles and wars, end disease, poverty, racism and greed; we can become a better society, and evolve to the next level. It’s only a matter of time.

I moved-on to the movies after that. I was ‘fascinated’ with those big-budget treks. (Well-mostly…I tolerate TMP, but… it’s growing-dearer, with time). To this day I still get teary-eyed with Spock’s death in TWOK, and I’ll admit it…I like TWOK’s sequel, The Search For Spock equally. To me, The Voyage Home is just, ‘ok’… Despite its flaws, I like Shatner’s The Final Frontier too and I will defend it to the bitter end! (It’s STAR TREK, for ‘God’s’ sakes! Get over it, haters!) I’ve even had the rare opportunity to see the first-six movies, in a back-to-back marathon, on Utah’s once-largest wraparound screen in Salt Lake City. It was my first-time seeing any STAR TREK movie on the big-screen! It was a great, once-in-lifetime experience and I had a blast!

I went on a trek to Georgia with Dad in 1987 (to visit his brother’s family). It just so happened that ST: The Next Generation premiered while we were there. My Uncle John was watching it, and he was a career Army-man… Hmmm… Needless to say, I fell in love with STAR TREK all over again. Looking back, I can see that those first couple of seasons of TNG weren’t great, but I didn’t care at the time. To me, it was new and the effects were brilliant! I remember the omnipresent Q and how we mere-mortals overcame the power he wielded. I remember the bad acting from some of the cast, as well…

But –damn! – there was a Klingon on the Enterprise bridge, not to mention a blind man was steering her! Plus the Enterprise could separate into two pieces! Holy shit! When Picard ordered Riker to manually put his ship back together, man, I was spellbound! That was impressive! The guys in miniskirts, however, were not… who’s idea was that?

In 1990, I moved to Utah. Amongst my meager belongings were the first five STAR TREK movies; videotapes, mind, before the ‘Directors’ Cuts’ even came out. These were the original-release VHS versions. Up until this point, I didn’t know anything-else existed – just the TV shows and the movies. Then I met and fell in love with my future wife, Pat. Her sister, Susan, was part-owner in a new/used bookstore called Buy The Book… On Christmas Eve of that first-year here, two phenomenal life-altering events happened: I asked Pat to marry me, and my soon-to-be sister-in-law gave me three amazing gifts.

Susan not-only gave me my very first STAR TREK novels (‘Rules of Engagement’ and ‘The Pandora Principle’), but she gave me the best gift of all: she opened up my eyes to a whole new realm of STAR TREK literature.

Well… you might as well havve just taken me to the moon, ’cause that was all she wrote, folks! Okay, bookstores, Walmart, Dragon’s Keep Comics…for the rest of this life, just go on ahead and take my damn money, would ya?! They have, too. Now, almost 23 years later, I have (in STAR TREK alone) 500+ paperbacks, 50+ hardcovers, a couple of dozen trade-paperbacks, 300+ STAR TREK

comics, as well as (thank you digital-era, ’cause now I’m shelling-out double, for something I swore I’d never read as long as they had bookstores, Walmart, Dragon’s Keep…) 21 STAR TREK e-books/novellas and 38 STAR TREK e-comics!

I can’t even begin to guess, how many thousands of hours I’ve spent reading STAR TREK books, or how many millions of words I’ve put these eyes upon, but I’d like to take a moment here and say: “Thanks, Gene ‘The Great Bird of the Galaxy’ Roddenberry, for bringing us STAR TREK in the first place and Thanks, Susan Jackson, for those first two books you gifted me…and Thank you, also, to every writer who’s ever put a pen to paper, or pecked those keys until their fingers have bled, writing these wonderful, imaginative adventures ‘for me’. You have ALL changed my life, in no small measure, forever.”

In these past 23 years, STAR TREK has seen some spectacular changes. My favorite, however, was watching the premier of DEEP SPACE NINE in January 1993. I remember just being totally blown-away by it! It was TREK with a whole different spin, ya know? Sisko’s crew wasn’t going to strange new worlds and seeking out new life. No, sir. The aliens and cultures were now coming to Sisko and company, and to this amazing, jewel-of-a-station, out in the middle of nowhere! Plus, we were seeing the rise of alien species we’d only glimpsed briefly, prior to this thought-provoking new enterprise. And Sisko had a kid! Sisko’s love for his son, Jake, still resonates with me. I’ve even tried to raise my kids using his template.

He didn’t mind showing his disdain for our hero, Captain Picard, either. I mean, who the hell was this guy anyway?! Where did he get off in speaking to Picard in such a contemptuous manner? But…I loved it! I thought: “Hell yeah!”

To this day, DS9 remains my absolute favorite of all of the series. Don’t get me wrong here, I love every one of these series, but…the characters of DS9 were so well fleshed-out, different from anything we’d seen previously. For one, they didn’t all get along. There was lots of friction and animosity, and their stories were fantastic, amazing. True, it was a bit dull the first couple of years, (especially, those Bajoran arcs), but then so was TNG.

DEEP SPACE NINE got really good, to me, when Sisko shaved his head and became Captain Benjamin Sisko. The addition of Worf to the crew and the Klingon/Federation tensions, the added bonus of the Defiant, as well as the increasing number of Garak appearances and storylines, only amped it up to a whole new level. When Jadzia was killed by Dukat, at the end of season 6, I felt like I had lost a family member. It ripped my heart out. But I couldn’t wait for the next season to begin, either. Ezri Dax took some getting used to, but she has really come a long way; especially since the re-launch of the series in the books. Sadly, though, DS9 ended just as it was really starting to hum and it was a bittersweet time for me.

The same was true for TNG when it ended its 7-year run. We (my wife and close friends) had a party for that brilliant series finale, and we thought it went out in extraordinary style. It had gone full-circle: Q putting humanity on trial and Picard beating him at his own game. It just made me love STAR TREK all the more. Another terrific spinoff from TNG is Peter David’s ‘New Frontier’ series. I absolutely LOVE these books! And, yes,I put them right up there with DS9. Peter David’s mind never ceases to astound me. I would love to see ‘New Frontier’, with Captain M’k’n’zy ‘Mac’ Calhoun and crew, in a television series. ‘VANGUARD’ and ‘TITAN’ would be great, too.

That being said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention ST: ENTERPRISE…

Oh-kayyy…

When VOYAGER premiered, my daughter Erica was 6-months-old; three-months-older than I was when the original series came out. Of course, she won’t have to question whether her’old-man’ liked STAR TREK, ’cause, it’s been a constant her entire life. Back-then, I was recording every episode on the VCR too. My collection of books, comics and memorabilia has ‘grown-up’ right-along with her. We recently shared our first father/daughter STAR TREK experience: I took her to the big-screen presentation of ‘The Best of Both Worlds’, as well as Into Darkness.

My late son, Kent, also shared my love of STAR TREK. It was our father/son thing. We premiered all of the STAR TREK movies (from Undiscovered Country to JJ’s STAR TREK) together, and he loved it! To him, it was a holiday from school that no one else had, and we shared some really good times. He passed away on May 1st of this year; ironically, it was the very same day that I had purchased our tickets for Star Trek Into Darkness. That was a very ‘dark’ day for me, let me tell ya… But I also know that he was excited, he was really looking forward to going to see it with me. Man, I’m not going to bullshit ya about it, it was hard-as-hell going to that theater without him… I’m not sure if I could’ve gone alone and I’m glad Erica was at my side.

Yes… I love STAR TREK.

Writing this, I find that I can’t pinpoint one particular reason for my obsession with it, either. It’s just a part of me. It always has been and, I can’t ever see it changing. I suppose, if you put a phaser to my head and demanded one reason, it would have to be that STAR TREK gives me ‘hope’. I can see humanity’s potential, its greater purpose, whenever I turn-on one of these adventures; or…whenever I can escape into the pages of one of its hundreds of books, trekking-away at warp-speed from the confines of this mad world which we ‘hew-mons’ inhabit.

It’s knowing, also, that the writers and artists (some of whom, I now call friends) ‘share’ my hopes and dreams of a better tomorrow, too. I love STAR TREK because it’s given me new ‘friends’, all-around the globe that I otherwise never would’ve met, because of new technologies that wouldn’t have existed without its influence on our culture, and our society as a whole and…

I love STAR TREK for this: the opportunity to write (badly, mind you) about something that I hold dear in my heart.

STAR TREK has changed my life, no question. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without STAR TREK. Can you..?

My question to you, I guess, is…why do YOU love STAR TREK?

This assignment now complete, I’m going back to STAR TREK: THE FALL | ‘Revelation and Dust’, by David R. George III. I mean, it IS DEEP SPACE NINE, after all… See y’all, ‘out there’.

Later, friend(s)

Eric G1