Howard Weinstein

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Name: Howard Weinstein
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URL: at Alpha Fandom
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Howard Weinstein contributed to Star Trek: TOS zines before writing multiple professional novels for Star Trek, ST:TNG and V.

cover by Weinstein for Captain's Log #1 (1976)

Fanworks

Fanfiction

Reviews

Convention Guest of Honor

Weinstein was a fan guest of honor.

Example Pro Works

Weinstein wrote the Star Trek pro novel, The Covenant of the Crown" in 1981. Weinstein wrote the Star Trek: TAS episode, "Pirates of Orion."

First Con Memories

40 years later after it occurred, Howard Weinstein wrote about Star Trek Lives! (1972):

I was not at Woodstock. But I was at that very first Star Trek Convention in 1972. Really. Honest! I don't recall how I even knew about it – probably from TV commercials I'd have seen during Channel 11's week-nightly Star Trek reruns in New York. Which means I probably didn't even hear about the convention until I came home for my college winter break a month before the convention would happen on January 21-23 in Manhattan. Luckily, my Christmas vacation included that weekend, and I decided I could not miss this event. I mean, it would probably be the one and only Star Trek convention ever held, right?

Since I lived on Long Island, I was just a 45-minute train ride from the city. And the convention would be at the mid-town Statler Hilton Hotel, across the street from the Long Island Railroad terminal at Penn Station. So getting there would be easy. But who'd go with me? Nobody, as it turned out. By the time that weekend rolled around, most of my friends were already back at school or not interested. Well, dammit, Jim! I wasn’t going to miss it, even if I had to go by myself – which I did on Sunday, the convention’s final day. By that time, the committee had famously run out of badges – and space: they’d expected a few hundred fans and stopped counting at around 3,000!

I think the con was on the hotel’s 18th floor, and Star Trek fans filled every square inch up there. I made one round of the dealers’ room, which was packed like a rush-hour subway train. As for the ballroom where the guests spoke and films were shown, I’m sure I never got a seat through the hours of listening to Gene Roddenberry and Isaac Asimov, and watching the infamous blooper reel (which was hilarious, and the first time I’d seen anything like that).

My specific memories of that day are fairly hazy, and influenced by reading accounts of the convention in TV Guide and books by the late Joan Winston, a funny lady who helped run all five original New York Trek cons and was a welcome fixture in fandom for decades after.[1]

An Apologist, and Supporter, of Pro Trek Novels

In 1983, two fans, Lisa Wahl and Julia Ecklar, decided to take action against what they considered to be poor quality Star Trek pro novels. One of these actions was the formation of Association for Readable Trek.

Howard Weinstein, who wrote the forward to the pro book by A.C. Crispin, Yesterday's Son, commented:

I know it's a damn good book — and real STAR TREK — because I was lucky enough to read the manuscript. I asked Ann if I could write the introduction for the book and she graciously said yes...Lisa and Julia get no argument from me when they complain that not all the pro STAR TREK novels are as good as they might be. But have we forgotten that not all of STAR TREK's TV episodes were great? The third season is best forgotten, isn't it? And even during the first two seasons. Gene Roddenberry occasionally presided over an episode that didn't work. That's the nature of any series — there is inevitable variation in quality. But that's no reason to boycott the whole series, is it?... That strikes me as a passive cop-out. It's like people who complain about the quality of TV — who straps them to their chairs and forbids them to change the channel, or turn the set off? Viewers and readers have the right and responsibility to be selective, and to voice either approval or disapproval to the decision-makers who choose what will be published or aired.[2]

A.C. Crispin, author of Yesterday's Son] commented:

Today I learned that a group called the Association for Readable Trek (ART) has proposed a boycott of all professionally-published Star Trek fiction in time for Christmas, '83. As one of Timescape's new crop of "fan-oriented" writers (my Star Trek novel. Yesterday's Son, will be the next release by Timescape), this suggestion disturbed me profoundly. I would like Lisa Wahl and Julia Ecklar to know that I sympathize with their frustration over some of the published Trek books over the years. Yet in promoting a boycott of Trek fiction, they may well be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, for I have it on good authority (the Timescape editors) that Paramount at long last has relaxed the strictures levied against would-be Star Trek writers, allowing them more latitude to experiment with and create in the Trek universe. This increased latitude in theme and structure can result in nothing but more creative, better, and more fan-oriented published Trek. Melinda Murdock's Web of the Romulans is an excellent example. I found it to be well-written, fast-paced, recognizable Star Trek. The characters were perfectly in accord with aired Trek. It is a matter of record that a recent issue of Starlog carried a statement from the Timescape editors saying that many new faces will be featured in the upcoming books, as well as some of the better-known fan-oriented writers, in particular, Howard Weinstein. Let's give Timescape a chance to make good on their stated commitment to improve the quality of the pro Trek novels! [3]

References

  1. ^ Celebrating 40 Years since Trek's 1st Convention dated Jan 20, 2102; archive link.
  2. ^ from Interstat #69
  3. ^ from A.C. Crispin in Interstat #69 (1983)
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