Welcome to Star Trekking, my attempt to share points of interest and random intersections in the final frontier.
In February 2018, Ryan Britt got a phone call, maybe the most exciting one of his career. Which is saying something, since Britt has interviewed a lot of famous people - and not just in the Star Trek world. Still when you get a call from William Shatner, you know it’s going to be special.
Shame his nine month old daughter was asleep on his shoulder.
But that couldn’t stop him, and so he boldly went on with the call, as he describes:
Shatner and I talked a little bit about the science of plants and whether we'll ever be able to communicate with flowers directly.
Around this time, my daughter woke up and started crying. Loudly.
"That's the cry . .. of .. hunger .. ." William Shatner said, suddenly the authority on my entire life. "You must feed her now.'
Yeah, no kidding, Kirk. Thanks for the tip!
Although I obviously was recording the call, I don't actually remember the rest of the phone call that well. I have Shatner's words and mine, but what I was doing with my baby while trying to talk to Captain Kirk is less clear. I do know that as I struggled with a bottle, Shatner continued to give orders, becoming an on-the-spot parenting coach over the phone.
That’s the opening of PHASERS ON STUN!, Britt’s latest book, which examines how Star Trek changed the world.
I recently asked Britt to tell us about the inspiration behind the book, his extensive research, and what - if anything - he was able to glean from his twenty minute Shatner chat.
First off, thank you for being willing to do this! Tell us a little about the genesis of the book.
Back in early 2020, I was thinking about the impending 40th anniversary of The Wrath of Khan in 2022, and how interesting and unique it is within science fiction history. We regard it as a classic, and yet, it was a huge departure for Star Trek at the time. This led to writing a few drafts of book proposal outlines focused on The Wrath. But after reading the great Rob Sheffield book Dreaming the Beatles (Dey Street, 2017), and having a few conversations with my agent, suddenly the idea of doing a really mainstream, fun, down-to-earth look at the totality of Star Trek made more sense. As with my first book, the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can't Read (Plume, 2015), my goal is always to write about sci-fi and fantasy with an easy-going, yet, very angular style. I'm very much influenced by Rob Sheffield, Sarah Vowell, Chuck Klosterman, and also by my good friend Caseen Gaines, who writes amazing non-fiction books about everything from Back to the Future, to the history of Black performers on Broadway.
Essentially, I felt like there had never been a very mainstream Star Trek history book aimed at casual fans and hardcore Trekkies alike. I'm obsessed with all the wonderful Trek history books that came before mine, specifically, Mark Altman and Ed Gross's The Fifty-Year Mission (Macmillan 2016), Marc Cushman's These Are the Voyages (Jacob Brown, 2013), and Sherilyn Connelly's The First Star Trek Movie (Mcfarland, 2019). And yet, I felt like my book could be different in two specific ways. First, I've been covering the new Star Trek shows as a journalist since 2016, meaning, I had a lot of material on Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, and so forth. Those books didn't have anything on the new shows. Second, I thought the idea of doing something that could appeal to someone who had never really loved Star Trek, was a great challenge. Like, I didn't want the book to be a collection of facts, but rather, meaning. In other words, I'm less of a historian and expert researcher than some of those wonderful writers I mentioned. I'm 100 percent more of a pop culture gadfly.
Susan Sontag kind of invented her own style of cultural criticism, and I guess I'd like to think I have too. I do enjoy leaning on memoir components to write non-fiction, which is something you really can't do as much in shorter pieces online but makes more sense in books. My background in non-fiction came from live storytelling and personal essays/short memoirs, so I think I retain an element of that in my writing, too. I'm not sure the journalist/critic/historian can ever fully remove their perspective, and with this book, I'm very transparent about that fact. People like Gross and Altman or Cushman are doing actual history. I'm doing historical commentary.
What's your overarching thesis?
The overarching thesis is pretty simple: Star Trek's longevity is defined by radical change and revision. This sounds basic, but I think it's quite profound when you dig in. Even if a reader doesn't buy the way I illustrate this thesis in my book, I literally can't think of another narrative artform/franchise like it. I mean, imagine a James Bond spin-off, containing characters only tangentially related to Bond and MI-6, and then imagine that thing having its own independent fandom within Bond fandom. That's Deep Space Nine, or, Discovery. From Sherlock Holmes to Batman to, yes, Star Wars, no other big franchise has been so successful at radical reinvention and departures from what came before. Just think about the different aesthetics of various Star Trek shows and films and contrast that with again, Star Wars. How does this even work? How is this even possible? The Wrath of Khan was a dark and gritty reboot in 1982, and it basically displaced the old Star Trek aesthetic for the mainstream. But then, just five years later, The Next Generation pivoted again and convinced an entire generation that Star Trek had nothing to do with Kirk and Spock. You just can't find other examples of this kind of thing being successful in big TV/film franchises.
How did you settle on a tone/voice for the book? It's pretty conversational and free with the use of, shall we say, more colorful metaphors...
Again, this is just how I write. Obviously, when you write articles for publication, online or in print, there's a certain kind of journalistic formality that's expected. I mean, when I'm running one of my interviews with the creatives at Strange New Worlds or an actor on Lower Decks, I know the readers at Inverse or Den of Geek aren't really interested in funny asides or a really voice-y take. So, my online journalism and essays are a lot more formal and less conversational than my books. (I mean I think my voice is still present in my online stuff, just less so. And that’s okay. It’s a different gig.)
And you know, you actually can't swear as much online, at least, sometimes. The mediums are just different you know? I don't really enjoy non-fiction books where the author is totally invisible. I know some people do, but that's just not my taste. I like to write books I'd like to read, so I try to present myself as accurately as I can on the page. I had a good friend of mine tell me that they didn't like my first book because they just weren't interested in the subject matter, but they said "it sounds like you," which is the best compliment I've ever received. I think Phasers on Stun! simulates what it's like to talk to me about Star Trek, but curated so I'm not rambling.
Also, very relevantly, I cut my teeth writing about science fiction at the blog Tor.com back in 2010 when I was 28. Back then, having a more bloggy voice was encouraged and helped to sort of loosen up that readership, at least I'd like to think so. I've actually become more formal in my writing since then, and I think if you glance at my 2015 essay collection, you'll find an even more casual and conversational tone than in the new book. Basically, for me, Phasers on Stun! is much more buttoned-up than my last book. But again, I think about my influences. Klosterman's Fargo Rock City or Killing Yourself to Live have been huge non-fiction staples of mine. Those books are downright rowdy compared this! And again, take a look at Dreaming the Beatles.
As far as swearing, I mean, if they can say "fuck" in Discovery and Picard, I think it's okay for me to say it in my non-authorized non-fiction jaunt through Star Trek history. To put it another way, this is not your parents' Star Trek book, unless, of course, my 5-year-old daughter is reading this interview, in which case, this is very much her parent's Star Trek book.
Here's another way to put it: In an early draft of the first chapter, I had a brief story about doing a story slam for The Moth back in 2005, dressed as Spock. That was the beginning of my live storytelling career. I didn't end up including this small anecdote in the first chapter, because it just didn't fit. But, if you wanted to view the entire book like a 10-hour monologue I've been trying to do since 2005, that's fine.
You posted a couple of great shots on IG of some of your research material. How did you approach reading (or in some cases, I'm sure, re-reading) all these great books?
My approach to reading and re-reading those books was like a mercenary. Remember that Deep Space Nine episode, "Empok Nor," where they have to raid the other space station for spare parts to fix DS9? I think researching is like that. You're under a time crunch, and you're scrambling to figure out what you need. Having grown up obsessed with non-fiction books about Star Trek helped because I had a baseline for what I needed. That said, there were some amazing books I'd never read before like Joan Winston's The Making of the Trek Conventions. What a great book.
In addition to books, I did reach out to several archivists and comb through as much source material as I could. Getting in touch directly with archivists John and Marie-Jose Tenuto and with Larry Nemceck was super-important. Larry's podcast, The Trek Files kind of does half the work for you. He's uploaded all these amazing documents on Facebook.
Your interview with Shatner was, shall we say, unique. Were you able to salvage any good material from that experience?
Oh totally. I mean, one thing that did come out of that interview was me trying to get him to talk about what it would be like if he was ever offered STAR WARS. But yeah, I mean a version of that interview ran back in 2018 on Inverse. At the time, my editor was like, "Yeah, I mean, we'll just do what we can with this." It was okay. But, I think the stuff that stayed with me was him giving me parenting advice, unsolicited, which you know, did not make it into the published piece at the time. I had a lot of different versions of the prologue for this book, but when I settled on writing about the emotional truth of that phone call with Shatner, it just felt right.
And I should note there are two Shatner interviews in the book. In late 2021, I interviewed him again, after his spaceflight, so Shatner is at the beginning and end of the book. The second interview in 2021 was way better. It was over Zoom and, honestly, he was great. We all know Shatner has a rep for being, shall we say mercurial, but in that recent interview I had with him in 2021, he was pretty damn charming. He complimented my blazer and just was super humble and kind.
What key interview do you wish you could have gotten that might have unlocked some additional insights?
Great question. I really had hoped for more interviews with folks who worked on the reboots. I mean, I should say, the book wasn’t reliant on original interviews. Obviously, a lot of the quotes from a lot of people come from other sources. (Which are all clearly documented in the Source Notes section.) But, that said, I'd really wanted to get to talk to Simon Pegg, not just about playing Scotty but co-writing Beyond. I also would have loved to have talked to Zoe Saldaña, who had her career EXPLODE after Star Trek in 2009. What was that like for her? I mean, she's answered questions like that elsewhere, but I would have loved to have talked to her. I recently interviewed Celia Rose Gooding, who plays Uhura on Strange New Worlds, and they told me that Zoe was their first experience of Uhura. I thought that was amazing.
I'd also loved to have interviewed the aforementioned Joan Winston, who was this powerhouse who helped start all the NYC Star Trek conventions. But, sadly, she passed away in 2008. I was fascinated with the idea that she was someone who worked in TV publicity but just happened to be a Star Trek fan. Like she was on a business trip for CBS in LA during the filming of "Turnabout Intruder." Star Trek is still an NBC show back then, so her just hanging out on the set was very much not her job. But she had this great business insight into how to get those conventions feeling professional, and I feel like she was just amazing. I totally love Joan Winston.
What book or interview (or whatever) ended up being the most surprisingly useful source?
That's a great question. There are a lot of candidates there. But, I'd have to say Kate Mulgrew's memoir Born With Teeth was my favorite. So much raw honestly. I've taught memoir writing since 2011 in both New York City and in Portland, Maine, and I gotta say, Born With Teeth is just a great memoir, regardless if you care about Star Trek or not. I love Mulgrew's skill as a writer. She also really gets what memoir is as an art form. It barely matters that she's a famous person. The writing is that good.
What do you hope readers will take away with them?
I hope readers are just as awestruck as I am that any of this happened at all. Again, the fact Star Trek has room for Kirk, Picard, Michael Burnham, and Mariner, to say nothing of three actors who have played Spock as an adult. I also hope people who have slept on one version of another of the franchise gain a newfound respect for the iterations they thought they didn't like. For example, I hope a fan of the newer shows, who maybe is kind of meh on The Original Series, sees it in a new light. On the flip side, I really hope fans of "old" Star Trek, who have a kneejerk dislike of the newer shows, lighten up a little bit and gain some new insight and respect for the new shows. I mean, the last four chapters of the book are all about the new shows. And if I do a revised edition in paperback, I feel like I could easily expand that to six chapters. That's a lot of new Star Trek in less than five years. I've been on board with the DISCO-era of Trek since day one, and I hope fans who haven't come around on the new shows at least get a new perspective.
Is there a question you wish I'd asked?
I wish you'd asked me: Which person was the most interesting to interview and if that interview changed the course of the book?
And the answer to that question is Robin Curtis. Some fans might raise their Vulcan eyebrows a bit high on how much I focus on Saavik in Chapter 8, but after talking to Robin over Zoom twice, at length, I just was like, wow. Holy shit. Nobody talks about Saavik enough. Robin is so down-to-Earth and humble and funny and like gets Star Trek fans. She was also the only actor to play a Vulcan who was freaking cast by Leonard Nimoy! I mean, let that sink in. Leonard Nimoy CAST Robin Curtis and directed her on how to be a Vulcan. And, then, Robin Curtis, in her head, is like "I didn't do a good job." Which isn't true at all. She's great. I love her Saavik, and I love Robin as a person. She also gave me some amazing candid photos, which are in the insert in the middle of the book. I mean, that photo of her sitting next to Nimoy at a party at Harve Bennett's house just blows my mind. It's like now when you see those really touching photos of Mark Hamill with Daisy Ridley filming The Last Jedi. Or, Isa Briones hugging Marina Sirtis on the set of Picard . You know? It's just that idea of something getting passed between generations, and Robin Curtis had that, and in the story of Star Trek, she kind of had it first.
Thanks, Ryan!
PHASERS ON STUN! is now available everywhere. I’ve just started reading it and already love it. If you’re a subscriber to this newsletter, I think you’ll love it, too.
Until next time, remember -
The human adventure is just beginning.