Gene Roddenberry's Introduction to "Star Trek: The New Voyages"
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| Title: | Gene Roddenberry's Introduction to "Star Trek: The New Voyages" |
| Creator: | Gene Roddenberry |
| Date(s): | 1976 |
| Medium: | |
| Fandom: | Star Trek: TOS |
| Topic: | |
| External Links: | |
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Gene Roddenberry wrote the introduction to Star Trek: The New Voyages. (Several of the main actors wrote intros to the individual stories therein.)
The book was professionally published collection of original Star Trek stories that had originally been published in fanzines. The anthology included Jennifer Guttridge's The Winged Dreamers, which many fans consider pre-slash or early slash.
In it, he acknowledged and praised fanworks.
Excerpt
...Certainly the loveliest happening of all for us was the fact that so many others began to feel the same way [about Star Trek as we did]. Television viewers by the millions began to take Star Trek to heart as their own personal optimistic view of the Human condition and future. They fought for the show, honored it, cherished it, wrote about it--and have continued to do their level best to make certain that it will live again.
...We were particularly amazed when thousands, then tens of thousands of people began creating their own personal Star Trek adventures. Stories, and paintings, and sculptures, and cookbooks. And songs, and poems, and fashions. And more. The list is still growing. It took some time for us to fully understand and appreciate what these people were saying. Eventually we realized that there is no more profound way in which people could express what Star Trek has meant to them than by creating their own very personal Star Trek things.
Because I am a writer, it was their Star Trek stories that especially gratified me. I have seen these writings in dog-eared notebooks of fans who didn't look old enough to spell "cat." I have seen them in meticulously produced fanzines, complete with excellent artwork. Some of it has even been done by professional writers, and much of it has come from those clearly on their way to becoming professional writers. Best of all, all of it was plainly done with love.
It is now a source of great joy for me to see their view of Star Trek, their new Star Trek stories, reaching professional publication here. I want to thank these writers, congratulate them on their efforts, and wish them good fortune on these and further of their voyages into other times and dimensions. Good writing is always a very personal thing and comes from the writer's deepest self. Star Trek was that kind of writing for me, and it moves me profoundly that it has also become so much a part of the inner self of so many other people.
Viewers like this have proved that there is a warm, loving, and intelligent lifeform out there--and that it may even be the dominant species on this planet.
That is the highest compliment and the greatest repayment that they could give us.