Preview Of Non-Fiction Star Trek Books For 2014/2015 – From Fun To Artwork To Scholarly Texts

@1 Harry Ballz

That’s all I think when I see these long posts of ads, just more and more money grabs from CBS.

1, Harry, 2, Kevin, I’ve seen books about Star Trek that were clear “money grabs” or, I suspect, oriented more toward the obsessive collector of all things Trek. Ah, CBS, will it never end? What’s next, Star Trek underwear? Oh wait, they have that.

http://www.cafepress.com/+insigniacentered_womens_boy_brief,1046299167

and criminey, the cover of “Ships of the Line” looks a lot like the next-to-last episode of DS9 …!

*sigh* I just don’t understand why there are a few fans who want to tear down Marc Cushman’s excellent series of books on TOS. These are — by far — the best books written about the series — and the most detailed.

The pros of these books far outweigh the “mistakes”. Buying one and then trashing both is just silly. The main thing I love about these books is the attention to detail and that these don’t read like Paramount/CBS fluff books.

It’s like some people have an axe to grind against Mr. Cushman for daring to attempt the greatest volumes on the series ever. SMH

I have Volume 1 and 2 — and volume 3 can’t come soon enough. No, the books aren’t perfect, but they are as close to perfect as anything we’re ever going to get!

Star Trek’s Ships of Line calendars and books are always great fun to read, view, and admire. Art books for the science fiction fan, indeed.

There’s plenty of reason to complain about and boycott this guy’s journalistic endeavours … mainly revolving around his distortion of evidence to fit his ratings theory, though a lot just indicates he isn’t anywhere near the detail-wise type that should have tackled this show. His errors on the music alone are pretty annoying. I decided to not buy any of the books just on the basis of the photo-stealing issue, but if I’d known of the terrible editing and journalism (not that Pocket hasn’t had its share of bad editing) I’d not have bitten either. This guy has clearly seen THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE and is intent on representing legends, new and old, as truth, and unfortunately, going by the raves he has gotten for essentially summarizing correspondence, he is going to prove that film’s notion that when the legend is more popular than the truth, to print (and believe) the legend.

Y’know, Pocket had a real chance to do definitive historical research books on TOS a quarter century ago when a lot more of the principals were still alive and aware. My THE ART OF STAR TREK proposal (NO relation to the disaster they wound up doing) , solicited by and then ignored by Kevin Ryan, was as much text as image driven, with the why of the designs covered through interviews with the designers. Shoot, my proposal had better illustrations in the mockup than the actual book did, and didn’t waste page after page on movie poster imagery or 7 pages on TMP/Abel boards of live-action.

I give Pocket props for doing something halfway decent with their phase 2 book, but even there the image captions are an utter disaster, where they identify a final VGER illustration as an early discarded version.

I know pocket swore off most making of stuff due to bad sales, but going by their standards, I’m amazed they didn’t bite on Cushman’s stuff.

Great post #10. I disagree with paragraph 1, but agree with you 100% the rest of the way.

Would’ve liked to have seen “your version” of The Art of Star Trek. TAOST should have been either a much more comprehensive book — or multiple volumes

Fun with Kirk and Spock Yaaaaaaaaaaaay its the new star trek script. Its juvenile has Khan in it and we have seen it all before.

Did anyone pick up on the thought that writing posts in a forum is also a bit vain.

9. Disinvited – July 11, 2014

How can you compare a self-published book being sold versus a blog that anyone can read for free? Cushman is a huckster. His facts are confused and his books are hardly authoritative. I think Kmet’s site shows a greater understanding of the ratings system than Cushman, which ruins Cushman’s theory about the ratings.

12)
My proposal was strictly TOS (series and films, along with TAS & PLANET OF THE TITANS and PHASE 2), with a citation for 24th century handled in another volume (also mentioned the idea of doing it on laserdisc, combining still imagery & music & film clips … that was obviously a little too ambitious, but I was thinking of how Mike Minor originally pitched the Enterprise departure from drydock for Phase 2 — the camera would be tracking back with the ship, keeping it steady while the background changed, while the Kaplau music from MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY played in background, with the ship finally rising out of frame as it overtakes the camera. would have been fun to illustrate that with storyboards.)

13) Your notion is kind of what Pocket intended to follow up on the STAR TREK SKETCHBOOK and Eaves’ MOVIE SKETCHBOOK. The other volumes would have covered TUC, TFF, so on until they wrapped with TMP (which would have been a mother!) Lousy nonfic sales scotched all of that stuff.

#18 — That would have been perfect! I’d have bought it.

Fun with Kirk and Spock looks, well, fun.

@ 23 Disinvited – July 12, 2014

“Self-published” seems perfectly accurate to me.

Your point about buying power is well taken (although, using an inflation calculator, Bonanza’s highest year one salary of $1,200 is a little less than $1,350 in 1966 dollars), but I think this is still talking past the key point. That point being that Shatner’s $5,000 an episode salary wasn’t chump change, as Cushman argues.

In regards to the number of affiliates that chose to air Star Trek, you’ve provided an interesting data point. Some interesting facts to be gleaned there. CBS’ Friday Night Movie, on roughly the same number of affiliates as Star Trek (185 vs. 181), was earning a little more than twice Star Trek’s audience on a weekly basis (at least, during the 10-11pm portion of its timeslot). Judd, for the Defense, which was also carried by roughly the same number of affiliates (182 vs. 181) brought in about the same sized audience as Star Trek on a weekly basis.

Still, there isn’t enough data here to mount an argument yet. How many affiliates carried Star Trek in 1966-67 and 1967-68?

#21. Michael K – July 12, 2014

I tried to dig up some info on Shatner’s salary and here’s what the AP of August 1966 had to say:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=897&dat=19660805&id=VapMAAAAIBAJ&pg=6872,4593771

The OCR on this is a little shaky but I’ll try to patch up what I spot :

”On another front — show categories — there is also semantic confusion. Press agents for a new NBC entry, “Star Trek,” recently issued a release proclaiming that it was not, definitely not, science fiction, but “real action-adventure in tomorrow’s space age.”

“It is good science fiction,” declared the star of the show, William Shatner as he sat, dressed in a modified “Batman” costume, explaining that he plays the captain of a military spaceship that “patrols the outer reaches of the galaxy.”

Shatner, last seen In television in a short-lived CBS disaster called “For The People,” is another In the growing group of actors Who, while still bowing reverently to Shakespeare, has made an adjustment to commercial television with its rewards and security. His “For The People” two seasons back was received well by the critics but as a midseason CBS entry it never managed to surface In the important Nielsen ratings.

Shatner, a Canadian, got his start in Ottawa’s National Repertory Theatre, moved on the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival. He has played on Broadway and starred in live television drama. But now as Captain Kirk of the space ship in “Star Trek” he owns a piece of the action, which, if the show is a success, is like a lovely annuity. ” — Prescott Evening Courier – Aug 5, 1966, Cynthia Lowry (AP), ‘Here’s The Way I See It’

If I recall the contract negotiations for Jack Lord prior correctly, something has to be wrong about Shatner’s starting contract salary being “generous.” Networks and studios usually give a “piece of the action” in the case of the opposite of what you’ve surmised. It’s been reported his piece was 20% of the $5000 salary for each of the first 5 reruns and 20% profit participation.

I recall Lord got what he wanted for HAWAII 5-O and that included 50% so just how “generous” could Shatner’s deal have been in light of that?

I also think television contract negotiations in 1959 were quit a bit different then, than what they were by Shatner’s contracts time. In 1959 the television and film studios still had a political blacklist, i.e. the practice was still well known and Major studio heads made threats in other areas that most surmised were comprised of the keeping of other similar lists. Actors signing television contracts in 1959 had a reasonable expectation that a lot of major film studio work was being closed-off to them. My only point is such negotiations had to have been much different than Shatner’s.

@26. Disinvited – July 13, 2014

It’s not clear to me where the word “generous” is coming from. If you were intending to quote me, I didn’t say that.

Your point that television contract negotiations would have been different in 1965 compared to 1959 is well-taken, but misses the fact that those 1959 contracts for Bonanza all expired in 1965 and had to be renegotiated that year (Pernell Roberts simply walked when his contract was done). 1965 was the same year Shatner’s contract was negotiated for Star Trek.

As for Lord, I’ve seen the fifty percent ownership figure bandied around online, but never seen a reputable source backing it up. In Up Till Now, one of Shatner’s memoirs, he says, “Supposedly Lord asked for 50 percent ownership of the show [Star Trek],” but this is the same page in which he writes, “Apparently Hunter’s wife began making all kinds of demands on Roddenberry, who finally fired him.” Shatner, of course, wasn’t present for either event (the latter of which, he’s definitely wrong about), which makes him a poor source.

@27. Disinvited – July 13, 2014

Those salary figures for Star Trek are correct, and come from paperwork in the Roddenberry files at UCLA.

#17 — Great question! I rent to buy all the “Art of” books and I’d have grabbed up one for Into Darkness had there been one. Ditto for a complete musical score. Not sure why we don’t have one of those either…

Disinvited, I can understand your skepticism about relying on one source completely for information. But I’m not sure why you believe that Michael Kmet is the only person disputing Marc Cushman’s incorrect statements about Star Trek in his books. There are multiple bloggers and writers who have done so. And we should keep in mind that Cushman has made multiple untrue statements in his books. In some places, he scrambles the chronology of what happened. In other places, he conflates one set of information with another. To be fair to Cushman, I have read both editions of his first volume, and the current edition of the second volume. There is no question that his use of the publicly available free materials at UCLA has helped provide the best timeline we’ve been given about when the script drafts were completed and when the actual production occurred on each episode of the original series. The memos Cushman was able to read at the UCLA archive are crucial, and his book works best when he’s citing them. I personally wish that he would have made the memos themselves available as an appendix to the Kindle editions of his volumes, as I’d rather hear from Bob Justman and Gene Coon directly in their own words. As it is, the books include what quotes Cushman is willing to provide from them, and then Cushman’s opinions about what they mean. Some sections of the books are quite interesting and helpful. The transition of Dorothy Fontana from assistant to staff writer is covered well, partly due to generous quotes from the memos about her work from Justman and the others, and partly due to Cushman’s interviews with her. The account of the writing of “Charlie X” is particularly interesting, especially the bit about Stan Robertson trying to give her notes directly rather than going through Roddenberry. I believe Fontana’s statements about this – that Roddenberry immediately called Robertson back and “ripped him a new one”. That said, Cushman gets himself into serious trouble when he makes assumptions about things like Star Trek’s ratings and then prints those assumptions as facts. He gets into trouble when he creates a narrative about NBC’s execs and others somehow using their dislike of Roddenberry to downplay Star Trek’s original success just so they could justify cancelling the series. His statements in these areas frankly indicate that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I’ll be clear about where I’m coming from here. I’ve been working as an assistant director in television production for just about 20 years. I worked as a DGA trainee on Star Trek Voyager during its first season. My father worked as an assistant director and UPM on multiple TV series and movies for approximately 30 years before me, including two projects with Bob Justman, who was a family friend. Cushman’s assumption that Star Trek had great ratings is based on a complete misunderstanding of the multiple ratings services that were and are used by the television industry. Michael Kmet’s blog is helpful in showing exactly how Cushman is getting this wrong. In short, Kmet shows that Cushman has confused what the various services were measuring. For example, Cushman assumes that a higher score from one service meant a higher gross audience amount rather than a higher level of enthusiasm and dedication from a smaller audience amount. That’s a critical mistake. Cushman also fails to understand why the ratings numbers from Nielsen were different from the earlier episodes to the later ones. Kmet helpfully notes that the Tammy Grimes program was originally scheduled opposite Star Trek and died immediately. As soon as it was pulled out of there, Star Trek’s ratings dropped. Kmet also is able to show the ratings in 15 minute increments for those early episodes, establishing that the show’s numbers were dropping off quickly even then. Essentially, Star Trek got a great sample when it started its first episode, but shedded viewers every 15 minutes over the course of the broadcast as they changed the channel to other shows. But let’s not just rely on Kmet, as you correctly note. Let’s instead turn to Herb Solow and Bob Justman, who state unequivocally that Star Trek’s ratings dropped off considerably over the course of its original run, and that Star Trek was fortunate to have been picked up for the two additional seasons. I particularly believe Solow’s statements that Star Trek’s wild use of color may have been a big help in motivating at least one of the pickups. The fact is, if Star Trek had been the ratings hit Cushman thinks it was, NBC would not have treated it the way it did (moving it around the schedule, usually into lesser timeslots), and it would not have cancelled it when it did. Television networks regularly… Read more »

Who cares????? I like Cushman AND his book!! Don’t like it? Don’t buy it!! Lol!! I won’t be buying the popup book but I’m not ready to crucify the publisher over it…lol!! I haven’t read a Star Trek book yet that was 100% accurate! You people obsess over the most ridiculous things!

#35 — That’s a reasonable approach to the book. :-) But, the proof is in the pudding — Marc won a Saturn award for his books. I think that says it all. :-)

Dude…a Saturn award. Case closed.

It’s as closed as your mind….which is to say, very! :-)

#32. Kevin K – July 13, 2014, 32. Kevin K – July 13, 2014 First, I definitely enjoy the dialogue we are having in regards to this. And I thank you both for it. I’m not defending Cushman’s sloppiness with regards to Nielsen ratings so much as questioning what Shatner’s salary being the going rate or not has to say about it. One thing about that that is clear is that both he and Lord were considered equivalent on paper. Lord went on to HAWAII FIVE-O and got a better deal than was offered Shatner on STAR TREK. Now whether or not in lieu of that Cushman is right about Shatner being low-balled seems meaningless in regards to our Nielsen concerns is all I’m saying. Look, I’m an old man now and I definitely don’t have some of the superpowers that youth offers in regards to this discussion. But for what it’s worth, I was an AV geek back then (mid to late 1960s) in my youth when all this was new. I was avidly scouring the periodicals such as BROADCASTING and FILM QUARTERLY trying to make heads or tails of the Hollywood mindset with regards to numbers that they would chose to make public. And one pattern emerged: They don’t like to print hard numbers. They prefer numbers than can be futzed with to impress when there is in fact nothing impressive going on. This is why even though the motion picture studios most definitely keep track of how many tickets are sold they instead only release the gross. Why? Because if you see a bad trend where fewer people are going to the movies, it is easy to compensate by inflating ticket prices to show ever increasing grosses. I used that example because what I perceived as going on with the Nielsens was much more subtler but essentially the same mindset. The Nielsens are important because that’s what the industry uses to get paid. But that doesn’t mean it became this monopoly because of the superiority of its methods but rather the superiority of its methods of marketing to its highest paying clients which gave it the economic clout to prevail. Now things may be different than when I arrived at these conclusions in the distant past so I am counting on you to update me where these no longer apply but what I recall as Nielsens’ problems were: 1. The Nielsens are not a random sample. Claims that 1 Nielsen “family” definitely represents X number of viewers in the greater U.S, population are suspect; even though I am aware that somehow they were able to use the 1960 census data to represent to their advertising clients of that era that their methods were superior to their competitors.) 2. The observed know they are being observed and worse, are the ones recording their observations in diaries. 3. Nielsen’s reports are not uniform but tailored to the various clients. For example, advertisers, who also pay much more on average, get a much different report than the networks. 4. Nielsen doesn’t publish it’s numbers because it is in the business of being paid for them so it’s not peer-reviewed science or math. It allows its clients to release some of them but it has always been unclear to me what the restrictions were on that and sometimes the public feuds over what one network would say it means versus theirs competitors’ claims were not only another reason for great skepticism but amusement. 5. While the essential Nielsen method of data collection has changed little, they have adopted changes over time to keep their client appeal which makes it extremely difficult to know that a number in one era (or even close years) means exactly the same thing in another. It was somewhere around in there that I became aware of a saying popularized by Twain, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” One thing that I also clearly recall is that not all shows with the same good rating are created equal. Network suits much rather have two low production cost half-hour comedies occupy an hour of air time than a much more expensive hour long show. It is simple ROI. And in service of that, the suits will do things like use ratings that differ insignificantly by fractions of a Nielsen point as an excuse to shuttle an hour show into the Friday death slot. Now, I haven’t had time to research whether that exact tactic was used in Trek’s case, but I seem to recall its Thursday time slot was occupied by two such comedies? My apologies for not having the time to research the answer to the above, but life has its demands and it’ll probably more fun to see what the group… Read more »

#43 — Word!!

Even if the photos are from some online source, those sources don’t “own” the images. That’s Paramount/CBS…

47. Dave

Yes, kmart and the other trolls won’t be specific and won’t explain why, if those photos weren’t properly used and sourced, there hasn’t been a lawsuit against the publisher. They’d rather spread their lies and innuendos like all trolls love to do.

@ 42. Disinvited – July 15, 2014

I think our conversation has gotten a bit side-tracked about whether Shatner’s salary was low or not. I’ll just say one more thing about my argument — and Cushman’s.

Cushman takes Shatner’s salary, adjusts for inflation, and says he was being lowballed because the inflation adjusted number doesn’t match what leading television actors make today. He then claims that the studio was able to lowball Shatner because he didn’t have access to the ratings, which were only available to the three networks. If he had, Cushman argues, Shatner would have earned as much (adjusted for inflation) as modern stars.

My counter-argument to his thinking is in several parts. (a) television salaries haven’t risen with inflation — they’ve outpaced it. (b) the Nielsen ratings were more widely available than to just the three networks. (c) adjusted for inflation, even the stars of Bonanza, who had just renegotiated their contracts based on the known ratings dominance of that show, didn’t earn nearly as much as top-tier television actors today. (d) Shatner wasn’t a proven, top-tier star in 1965, when he made his deal for Star Trek.

In short, Cushman’s argument here just isn’t all that well thought-out. I’m willing to entertain the notion that my conclusion — that Shatner wasn’t earning a bad salary for an unproven TV lead — might be wrong, but I find my reasoning at this point to be a hell of a lot more sensible than Cushman’s. It would be interesting to compare what Shatner was earning to a number of other television actors of the time. That kind of study would need a lot of archival sources — not all of which are publicly available — but it might be possible to pull off, given enough time. Something I’ll be thinking about in the future.

You make a lot of interesting points about the Nielsens, but I’ll need more time to address those in a way that isn’t haphazard, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I take a few more days to prepare my thoughts (and deal with real life) before I get into them.