David Alexander (5) (1943–)

This book has literally been around the world with me. Ages ago, I decided that it was an ideal book to take on vacation: It features a subject matter than I'm interested in -- I was an embarrassingly obsessive Star Trek fan in my youth and still have a great nostalgic fondness for the old show -- but not so deeply fascinating that I'd resent having to put it down and go do vacation-y stuff. Plus, it's over 600 pages, so there'd be less danger of running out of reading material while traveling. So nearly every time I went somewhere, I'd toss this book into my suitcase or carry-on bag, but somehow I never got around to actually reading it. There'd always be some other book I wanted to finish up first, or some more interesting book that I'd brought with me or picked up along the way. Well, I just got back from a sort of mini-road trip with my mother, during which I decided that, doggone it, this time I was finally going to read the damned thing. Of course, having done that, I have no idea what I'm going to bring with me when I travel now. I almost feel like I've lost a security blanket.

Anyway. I had decidedly mixed feelings about this biography. On the plus side, it turns out that Gene Roddenberry had a much more interesting life, pre-Star Trek, than I would have expected. For instance, during his military and civilian piloting career, he was involved in not one but two deadly plane crashes, the second of which would have made for pretty good television in itself. And once the book gets into his television career, there's a lot of detail about the process of writing and producing TV (including the uglier details involving studio politics, disputes over credit, and the frustration of projects that never get off the ground), which may be worthwhile reading if you're interested in the human story of where the shows on your TV set come from. The best parts of the book, in my opinion, are the excerpts from Roddenberry's letters to various friends and colleagues, including such science fiction luminaries as Isaac Asimov and John W. Campbell, in which he talks about writing, politics, Star Trek, and all manner of other subjects. These letters reveal much more about Roddenberry the man than any of David Alexander's biographic writing, and they provide some insight into the thinking that went into his TV projects, including Trek.

On the other hand, I have to say that this book is not terribly well-written, on a couple of levels. It's littered with misspellings, mostly words that have been mistaken for their homonyms or for other similar-sounding words. The author also repeatedly and egregiously misuses the word "ironically," which is something of a pet peeve of mine, although I admit that I may be on the losing side of a major linguistic battle there. I don't think that pointing this out is overly nitpicky of me; it really does make the whole thing feel a bit amateurish. Also, this book did not need to be more than 600 pages long. I often get the impression that Alexander thought he was writing a scholarly work in which as much information as possible should be preserved for the ages, rather than a biography of a television writer, destined to be read primarily by science fiction fans. How else to explain the pages and pages tediously spelling out the details of Leonard Nimoy's contract negotiations, or the inclusion of a multi-page itemized letter in which Roddenberry meticulously catalogs the budget differences between Star Trek and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, when a paragraph or three summarizing the issue would have been fine and much more readable?

It's worth pointing out, by the way, that this purports to be a warts-and-all biography, by Roddenberry's own request, and the author is clearly making some sort of attempt at this, but it's equally clear that he's deeply biased. The book takes something of a worshipful tone at times, occasionally referring to Roddenberry as a "genius" and generally putting the most positive possible spin on even his biggest flaws and worst moments. It's also clear that in many cases, we're only getting one side of a highly contentious story. I gather there's also an unauthorized biography out there which takes a much less flattering view, but while it might be interesting to compare and contrast them, I think I've had more than enough Roddenberry to last me for a while.… (mais)

If this is the authorized biography of Gene Roddenberry, best known for creating the Star Trek series, the unauthorized bio must be a lulu. Roddenberry was a man of gargantuan appetites and vision, who was marred and limited by an instinct to put the screws to those he dealt with when it came to money and credits. For example, he insisted on writing lyrics to Alexander Courage's stirring theme for the show, so that he could take half the royalties and get his name on the credits - even though lyrics were unneeded and never used. Still, he does deserve the ultimate credit for pushing this groundbreaking series through, and he was a personable man capable of great generosity as well as selfishness and tremendous ego.… (mais)