The Meaning of Star Trek [Hardcover]

Thomas Richards (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 1997

"Star Trek" has no equal. Easily the most cerebral show on television, it brought a literary sophistication to the raw material of science fiction and confounded all the formulas of television. By taking classic stories and putting them in strange new contexts "Star Trek" became a modern Odyssey in outer space, a set of stories so basic to our culture that they can be told over and over again.



But while legions have devoured score of books on every aspect of the series, no book has ever dared to explore what "Star Trek" means-where it comes from, why it is so popular, how it creates a coherent world-until now. The Meaning of Star Trek captures the essence of this timeless television masterpiece by examining it in the context of literary history, social history, anthropology, myth, and religion-how it grew from a science fiction tradition; how the history of the federation reconfigures our own; how it handles the concept of first contact with other cultures; how its stories relate to classic myths; and how its tales of wonders, marvels, and miracles appeal to our sense of religion. Most importantly, The Meaning of Star Trek is a vital bridge between the universes of classical literature and popular entertainment, showing how this television series mines literary classics-and how those classics were the popular entertainment of their own time.



Enlightening, provocative, and tremendously accessible, The Meaning of Star Trek is a Trekkie's dream, and a book no student of literature or television will want to be without.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In a serious but rippingly entertaining study, Richards boldly goes where no literary theorist has gone before, only slightly defensively as he suggests that Star Trek is as legitimate a text as--well, he stops short of saying "Shakespeare." He explores character and narrative in the original series and its TV and movie spawn, teasing enormously intriguing ideas from them. Star Trek, he proposes, is comedic in form. Viewers are always certain that wounds will be healed and ruptures sutured before an episode ends. Yet the series presumes that each crew member is essentially alone; the layout of the ship, wherein no one seems to be another's next-door neighbor, bespeaks the essential isolation of the individual. This individualism is most threatened by the collective mind of the Borg, a fearsome cyborg-army that also threatens the series' emphasis on human physicality, according to which other races may have strange brows and ears and skin but always walk upright and occur in two sexes. One of the best recent Star Trek books and also one of the most cogent, exciting recent literary analyses. Patricia Monaghan

Review

"Richards' analysis is excellent and covers everything from theology to the emphasis on individualism that lies at the very heart of the Star Trek universe."
--Kirkus Reviews


From the Trade Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (June 9, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385484372
• ISBN-13: 978-0385484374
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,584,754 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Perspective vs. Meaning, January 4, 2000

By 

palmquistdavid (Audubon, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Meaning of Star Trek (Hardcover)

Thomas Richards neither flaunts nor abandons his academic training in his book, 'The Meaning of Star Trek.' Rather, what he is presenting is a thesis paper for popular consumption, much like Stephen Hawkins presented physics in his, 'A History of Time & Space.' Mr. Richards goes to great lengths to bury what could be tedious references within his text while presenting enough detail to emphasize his essential points. He is careful to reacquaint the casual Star Trek admirer with information before he goes on to underscore his conclusions. Unfortunately, in his effort to please so broad an audience he disappoints the academian, draws criticism from Star Trek aficionados, and irritates well informed followers of the overall scr-fi genre.

For my taste, there are three major flaws. The first is redundancy for the purpose of emphasis and clarity. Mr. Richards belabors his favorite topics by repeating the same examples from exhaustive perspectives. It is as though he is anticipating criticism and he wants to leave no room for any interpretation but his own. It is of no surprise that not only would this be a technique employed in the presentation of a thesis/paper for academic review, but is is also a device found in several of the ST:TNG episodes, "A matter of Perspective," and, 'Measure of a Man,' among others. Like a lawyer, Mr. Richards has points that he does not want us to miss, and he doesn't want us to be able to undermine his conclusions either.

The second flaw is an uncomfortable element of contradiction. For example, Mr. Richards states, '... most characters do not actually develop over time.'(pg.68) But he concludes the segement with, '... experience... turns out to be a strengthing factor in the development of the character.'(pg.100) Personally, I would only single out Miles O'Brien as THE character who walked into the Star Trek universe naked of personality and history. And ONLY James T. Kirk was able to board and disembark The Enterprise as nearly immutable. Every other major character appears with strongly rooted histories that support development within a given episode or demonstrate an evolution as they make their way through the Star Trek universe. I would point to Picard and Worf as the most obvious examples, even if confined to ST:TNG.

Finally, Mr. Richards occasionally becomes distracted by a particular event then leaps to a gross generalization. Instead, he should stick to his formula of defining his position then presenting his support. Case in point: Mr. Richards ruminates the death of Tasha Yar as an event and a storytelling vehicle, then extrapolates it to the conclusion that Star Trek cannot handle the broader topic of death. This seems myoptic given Spock's & Kirks's demise on the big screen, the murder of Jadzia Dax & the disposition from life of Benjamin Sisko on ST:DS9, and the explosion of Kes out of Voyager's plane of existence. Mr. Richards misses 'The Meaning' by getting lost in the singular example, a regretable tendency repeated throughout his book. Admitedly, the 'death episodes' are not the most memorable, but the death experience resonates the Star Trek underscore: Hope. The conviction within the Star Trek universe is that nothing is allowed to dissolve into an inescapable pessimism. Even death is merely regarded as an,'Undiscovered Country,' if you'll excuse my free-wheeling of the quote.

I would not dismiss Mr. Richards', 'The Meaning of Star Trek.' Rather, I would re-title it,'A Personal Interpretation of Star Trek.' It is by no means a bad interpretation. If I was offering a course on Star Trek, Mr. Richards' book would appear on my suggested reading list. However, it is simply not the last word.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not perfect, but fun for intellectually-inclined fans, May 29, 1999

By 

A. Bowdoin Van Riper (Vineyard Haven, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Meaning of Star Trek (Hardcover)

Anyone who's not a devoted fan of Star Trek, particularly of its Next Generation incarnation, is likely to find this book incomprehensible. They're also unlikely to buy it in the first place. Richards does ST the honor of taking it seriously, and he offers steady supply of nifty interpretations of what it has to say about life, the universe, and everything. His glosses of individual episodes are superb, and he's led me to rethink several of my favorites. This is literary scholarship written for a literate nonspecialist audience . . . and good scholarship at that.

Well, mostly good.

As noted elsewhere, Richards purports to cover the entire ST mythos, but focuses 80% of his major arguments on the "Next Generation" series. This weakens some of his interpretations, which fit TNG better than the mythos as a whole. The theatrical movies get virtually no coverage, again glossing over some troublesome diversity of data.

Richards fares considerably worse when he ventures outside of ST. His perceptions of Science Fiction as a genre are based on "Star Wars," Asimov's "Foundation Trilogy," Herbert's "Dune," and some passing references to Verne and Wells. His entire reading in SF history and criticism seems to have been Brian Aldiss's brilliant but notoriously polemical 1973 history "Billion Year Spree."

Virtually every generalization Richards makes about SF as a genre is, to be charitable, in dire need of qualification. Trek fans unfamiliar with the genre should *not* take them at face value. Trek fans familiar with the genre should brace themselves. Profane exclamations of disbelief are optional.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good in places but weak in its research, March 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Meaning of Star Trek (Hardcover)

I bought this book under the title 'Star Trek in Myth and Legend' and didn't get quite what I was expecting. However, a lot of the analysis is of interest, mostly to the point and at least gives you a place to start thinking.

I just wish he'd put a little more effort into the research - particularly the section on Lwaxana Troi. Apart from getting her title wrong he misses some very fundemental points when analysing her character, especially in the episode 'Cost of Living' and so loses the opportuntiy to make some far more interesting comments than are given, and this leads him to view her as a parasite, when this is far from the function she fulfils in the show.

There again, critical analysis should give you something to discuss - and this book does that.