To Star Trek or to Star Wolf?

Why not do both?

Let’s start with Trek.

The new Star Trek movie Into Darkness debuts this month.  The word of mouth seems good from the few people I know who have seen advance screenings as do regular folks reporting at IMDB.  I’m a little skeptical, as I did not love the last movie (bad science, comedic elements I didn’t think worked well) and Damon Lindelof, who scripted the terrible Prometheus worked on this script, too.  I am happy to have the franchise back on the big screen and will remain hopeful.

Star Trek has had a lot of incarnations and a lot of ups and downs over the years.  Each TV series had its great moments and its elements of awfulness, as have the movies.  Still, Star Trek was my first science fiction and inspired me to become an astronomer and will always hold a special place in my heart.  I’ll be seeing the new movie this week.

Now the Wolf.

There’s another version of Star Trek you may not be aware of.  David Gerrold, who wrote for Star Trek and invented tribbles, among other things, wrote a script that wasn’t used.  He used it as the basis for a novel that became Voyage of the Star Wolf and spawned a series of books.  This series constitutes a grittier, alternate type of Star Trek series, one that I’d love to see the show produced.

I’m not the only one.

There’s now a kickstarter going trying to raise money to make The Star Wolf a reality.  Gerrold is involved, of course, and they have a bunch of great stories already.  Other competent professionals are also involved.  They’ve only got about $50k of the $650k they need to get flying (a little of that my own pledge), and I want to help spread the word.  The new Trek movie is going to generate hundreds of millions in all likelihood and I wish The Star Wolf effort could get a tiny slice of that, but that isn’t how Hollywood works, unfortunately.   In any event, check out the kickstarter link and watch the video and read about the project (“What doesn’t kill me better start running!”).  Donate enough money and even get killed on the show!

(And if it amuses you, recall I am the author of Star Dragon and Spider Star.  Never met a title with “star” in it I didn’t like, apparently!  How about Wolf Spider Star next?)