It’s been a killer of a preproduction procedure. Months. Snarls. Immaturity, rudeness, earthquakes, medical problems, idiot computer programs that required us to proof these pages over and over till we nearly lost our eyesight and our minds, heart attacks, quadruple bypass surgery, poverty, lies, blasphemy, perfidious behavior, tainted foods, strange alien creatures from foreign lands, senility, uncontrolled flatulence, impending death or disfigurement. Months. Snarls.
But we got through it, and we’re still alive, so what the hell. Thank you to Scott Cohen, our fecund and idefatigable designer, right up to the blue line additions. Thank you. Thank you particularly to the remarkable Laura Perkinson, White Wolf’s demon editrix on this project. Her attention to detail, her delicious punctiliousness, her dogged commitment to producing an error-free text, cannot be praised highly enough. Thank you. Now go put a cold compress on your brow.
The good friends who wrote the Afterwords. Each a star, each with better things on which to spend time than writing a coda to this book. But they did it. Because they’re stand-up. I am in the debt of each of you. (Not to mention Stewart Wieck.)
Last of all, Susan. My wife. Yeah, you.
If it were not for Susan, trust me on this, I would long-since have taken to the streets with an assault rifle. You can all thank your lucky stars she’s here on my behalf—because frankly, it’s been decades since I was a responsible person.
Not once, but many times.
Not just in private chats,
but in print, on the air,
and where it counted.
For thirty years he knew
the truth and wasn’t afraid
to tell it. He was there.
In friendship,
this one is for
ALAN BRENNERT
The author with Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner, in 1966, on the set of STAR TREK® with the inscriptions, "Who's the kid in the middle – Bill Shatner" and "Harlan – love you and your great credits – Leonard Nimoy."
“It’s not the vision I had.”
Gully Jimson
The Horse’s Mouth
by Joyce Cary
WOULD YOU BUY A USED GALAXY FROM THIS MAN?
30 MARCH 1988
MUSEUM OF BROADCASTING, 5TH ANNUAL TELEVISIONFEST HELD AT THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF ART’S LEO S. BING THEATER
GENE RODDENBERRY SPEAKS TO THE CROWD.
In answer to a question about the writers on the original Star Trek series: “Most of those I don’t want in the same room with me. I’ve given all of them a chance. Harlan got a chance on the first show and wrote a $350,000 estimate budget show in those days when we only had $186,000. And when I told him to cut the budget, he sent me back a note that said, ‘Do it with special effects.’ He then submitted his original script for a Writers Guild Award, and when he won the prize, which he deserved for the script…except that many people would get prizes if they wrote scripts that were budgeted out at three times the show’s cost. I rewrote that script for Harlan, and it won the Nebula Award, which he rushed up on stage and took credit for, too…David Gerrold has been condemning the show constantly, although I had him on staff for many months. He never wrote an episode we could shoot. So beware of these people that are loud voices. Give your attention to people who quietly do good work.” (Thunderous applause.)