Official hiatus time
So, I posted on Facebook that I'm about ready to close my Well account, and that means the Complete Starfleet Library website will go away. Here's the backup address:
https://web.archive.org/web/20141112075432/http://www.well.com/~sjroby/lcars/
The website is hosted on the Well because that was one of my first Internet hangouts -- I signed up in 1992, and when they provided their users with web space a couple years later, I decided to give it a try. By 1999 or so the Complete Starfleet Library existed in its modern form, and I had a great time tracking down lots of obscure Star Trek books and adding them to the site and, sometimes, writing about them here.
Doing the site was part of a lot of Star Trek books-related fan activity I was doing anyway. I was hanging out on various Trek books sites (simonsays, Psi Phi, and TrekBBS) every day.
I scanned a bunch of my clipped Star Trek comic strips for Rich Handley's first Trek strips project, long before the books were published; I don't know if any of my scans were used for the old CD-ROMs but it was fun being part of a cool project.
I visited the Pocket Books Star Trek office while in New York for a conference and met Marco Palmieri, Keith R.A. DeCandido, John Ordover, and a few others, and got some cool freebies. It never even occurred to me to try pitching a Starfleet Corps of Engineers story to them, I was too busy being a happy fanboy.
I got to read a few Star Trek books before publication, including the Destiny trilogy, thanks to Marco.
Paul Simpson, then editor of the official Star Trek magazine, asked me if I wanted to be a part of the magazine's two-issue look at all of the seasons of all the Trek series, and Robert Greenberger asked me if I'd like to do a sidebar for his unauthorized Trek book. And I even got paid. How cool is that?
A lot of people shared information and some, like Mark Martinez and John Patuto, gave me books.
I had a lot of fun with two of the more unique sections of the site: The God Thing Page, about Gene Roddenberry's unfinished and unpublished novel, and The Lost Books Page, about various books that were conceived and sometimes announced and sometimes actually made it to the printing press before they became unbooks. The God Thing page was plagiarized by other websites, wikis, fanzines, etc. I may post those two pages on Wordpress or some place and do a little updating.
The world of 2015 is not the world of 1999. Personal websites and blogs are retro curiosities. Official Star Trek books are fewer than they used to be, unauthorized books likewise, except for ebooks and self-published books recycling wikipedia content or episode guides or trivia. There's no Star Trek on TV to keep me interested, and I'm not as keen on some of what Pocket's producing as I used to be. Doctor Who's taken a lot of the mindspace Star Trek used to occupy.
So, anyway... I'm on Facebook, I'm on Gallifrey Base, my bloggy stuff is mainly at thefifteenth.wordpress.com because few people are still active on LiveJournal. And if we get a new Star Trek TV series and it kicks ass, and it revives the world of Star Trek books a bit, maybe I'll find a new way to bring all this back.
posted by Steve @ 12:15 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Steve, your Starfleet Library officially disappeared at 1:20pm EST on March 4th 2015. I've been building a spreadsheet of titles, using your site as a guide, in order to determine just how extensive my book collection is (been collecting since 1972). Imagine my dismay when I got an Access Forbidden message while perusing 1988. Anyway, I'm happy to have found your archive which I HOPE will remain accessible at least until I can document (almost) everything in it. I also hope I speak for all concerned when I say, "Thanks for your hard work these 15 years!" It has been a pleasure.
Hi, and thanks. The Internet Archive has the most recent version of the site, and it's not likely to go away any time soon, I hope -- I use it regularly for both personal and work-related stuff. I've also thought about possibly creating a pdf or epub of the site and making it downloadable somewhere, but that would take some work to get something that actually looked okay.
I don't know that I'm necessarily done with this. I am done with the Well, where it was hosted, but I've already uploaded all the images into my wordpress space, so who knows what may happen.
It's so sad to see your website go. "The world of 2015 is not the world of 1999. Personal websites and blogs are retro curiosities." This surrender is a pity but understandable in an age where social networks rule the world and give their users the illusion of being creative, of freedom of speech and even of friendship.
Steve, IF you someday make a downloadable version of your inestimable archive, I'd consider it a privilege to acquire it. I'll continue to monitor your blog. Best Regards.
On a somewhat related note:
I tried sending this to the e-mail I have on file for you, but it was from the old Well account so it got kicked back ...
Steve:
I ran across a pdf version of Star Trek With Latin on a website somewhere.
After printing it off, I found out that, in spite of the title, it has absolutely nothing to do with the TV series. The entire “textbook” (it’s described as a “tentative edition”) uses astrology as a tool to teach latin to students in the Philadelphia school district. Hence the name “star” trek as it is a journey through the stars of astrology.
It appears that the author was using a play on words to try and sell the book, but there is NO mention of the TV series whatsoever.
Thought you’d like to know.
Randy
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