Shatner, William

• Star Trek Memories

  • I don't really consider myself to be a "Trekkie" or "Trekker" or whatever. I'm a Star Trek fan who has never been to a Trek convention or known much about the inner workings of the original show. However, I guess my curiosity about the history of Star Trek overcame my instinctive naseous feeling at the writing style (esp. the the first chapter... oh, I came THIS close to putting the book down right there) because overall, I liked this book. There is plenty here about the shooting of the original series and lots of trivial little things I can now watch for in the reruns that I didn't know about before. So my advice: If you can get through the first chapter, go ahead and finish it, because it gets better from there. Brought back a lot of memories for me of watching the show when I was a child.

• Star Trek Movie Memories

  • This book is a slightly more entertaining and insightful version of the first Memories book. Perhaps that's because the memories of the moviews are fresher for me or because Shatner has become a better storyteller with practice. Or maybe it is because his own writing (with co-author Chris Kreski) has become a little less prominent and he relies more here on extensive quotes from the principals such as Harve Bennett, Nick Meyer and Leonard Nimoy. Anyway, the style of writing is bad enough that I will never read Shatner's fiction, but the subject matter is fascinating enough (to me anyway) that this was a very enjoyable read. You'll really see the movies in a new light.

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