Now, this is neat: The UK Sci-Fi TV Book Guide

Just had an email from the proprietor of the above website asking if he could add the Complete Starfleet Library site to his links page, and answered yes, of course. And checked out his website. It's a hell of a thing. Lists of tie-in books for dozens of TV series, UK and USA. Blake's 7, Red Dwarf, The Prisoner, Space: 1999, pretty much everything but Doctor Who, and he's working on that now. If you were curious whether there were Quatermass books, you have a place to go now. (I have one. Now I know there are others.) Looks like the focus is more on script books, novelizations, and novels than on nonfiction books, but I could browse through there for quite a while. Good grief, there's a Star Maidens book!

(Now playing: Phil Lee And The Sly Dogs, "Daddy's Jail," Insurgent Country, Vol. 3: Nashville - The Other Side Of The Alley.)

Sometimes dreams come true

... and it isn't always all that exciting.

Over at Psi Phi, there was a brief discussion a few weeks ago about Star Trek book dreams, started by Shawn H. Golley. I posted, mentioning that I have recurring dreams about finding Star Trek books I didn't know existed, or vaguely knew about but had never seen before.

Last week in Chicago the dream came true. In the science fiction section of Afterwords, I found a copy of a mass market paperback called The Best of The Best of Trek Part Two.

The upside? It's a book I didn't know existed. The downside? This is the third time I've bought the contents of this book.

In theory, the material in the Best of Trek books was all originally printed in Trek, a fanzine or maybe a semiprozine, but that was published so sporadically that I'm sure a lot of the content was only ever published in book form. Anyway, the articles in this book first appeared in book form in various volumes of the mass market Best of Trek volumes, and were then reprinted in a large trade paperback called The Best of The Best of Trek. And then they reprinted the reprint collection! In two volumes!

Maybe I should be happy. This is the first time I've had an unexpected Trek book discovery in about four years. But the fact that I didn't have, or know about, this book doesn't make up for the fact that I had everything in it.

Oh, yeah. I was in Chicago last week. It was cool.

(Now playing: The Warlocks, "Stickman Blues," Phoenix Album.)

A Star Trek that almost was: Kitumba by John Meredyth Lucas

EXT. SPACE

as the new Enterprise hurtles by, its
speed enormous.

INT. BRIDGE - CLOSE SHOT - UHURA

UHURA rises from the communication station.
CAMERA PANS her across to Kirk. She
holds out her electronic slate.

 UHURA
Signal from Starfleet Command, Captain.
Just decoded.

Kirk studies it, turns to ILIA.

 KIRK
Lieutenant, plot a course to Starfleet
Command.

 ILIA
(surprised)
Star Fleet --
(sees Kirk's expression)
Aye, aye, Sir.

 KIRK
We're ordered to pick up a patient suffering
from radiation burns.

 DECKER
Surely Starfleet has more complete hospital
facilities than --

 KIRK
Yes. And, with all the tension in this part
of the galaxy, there must be a better use
for the Enterprise. But it's an order.

DECKER is about to add something. Seeing
Kirk's expression, he decides against it.

If you've read Star Trek: Phase II: The Lost Series, or Lost Voyages of Trek and The Next Generation, or The Star Trek That Never Was, you've probably wanted to read some of the scripts for that unproduced Phase II series, and not just the ones that ended up being filmed in significantly different forms. For example, "Kitumba," the epic two-parter about the Klingon Empire, which would have shown us something very diferent from the Klingons we later saw in the movies and Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Now, a resourceful Star Trek fan who posts on the TrekBBS as The God Thing has made available the first part of Kitumba, scanned from a copy of the original script, with the second part on the way. You may want to read TGT's posts on the subject. Or you may want to download files 1, 2, and 3 as soon as possible. Either way, we owe TGT and fellow TrekBBS user Lecter, who provided the web space, a lot of thanks for this. Keep it up, guys.

(Now playing: Slits, "Adventures Close to Home," Cut.)