Inside Star Trek: The Real Story

by Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow

Book Overview

In early 1964, Herb Solow had just been hired to run television production for Lucille Ball's struggling Desilu Studios when he met a soft-spoken Texan named Gene Roddenberry. Thus begins the story of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671896288
• ISBN13: 9780671896287
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 458 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.7" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

One of My Favorite Things

I assume that if you're reading this review, we share in common the belief that Star Trek The Original Series (TOS) was great. Perhaps you bought the complete set of DVD's, like I did. The DVD's are worth it; I consider them one of my most treasured collections. I watch the episodes with my kids, and they love it. TOS is great television, with great writing asking intriguing questions about man's existence. Television writing has devolved since that time. I've read both "Inside Star Trek" and Yvonne Fern's "Gene Roddenberry, The Last Conversation". Both books look at different angles of Star Trek. Fern's book deals with the philosophical side of Gene Roddenberry, and how he perceived himself. "Inside Star Trek" deals with the business end of the show and all the difficulties encountered in producing it. It's an impressive story, and it's amazing that it ever got produced. Herb Solow and Robert Justman did a fantastic job producing the series. It's been about 33 years since I was in college. After dinner in the cafeteria, a group of us would congregate to watch Star Trek reruns on the local UHF station. That was a crucial time in the success of Star Trek, when the UHF stations picked it up, because it was otherwise a ratings failure on the networks. If it wasn't for the phenomenal success of Star Trek appearing in reruns on UHF, Star Trek would have been just a vague memory. I would not recommend this book to new viewers of Star Trek, until they have seen the shows, because the book tends to reveal the magic. Roddenberry is a god to some, but he had "feet of clay". Also, reading about the actors tends to diminish the herioc stature of the characters they protrayed. "Inside Star Trek" shows you all the nuts and bolts of how the thing was put together, and how it fell apart. Looking back, Star Trek was an incredible achievement.

Priceless for every TOS fan and trekkie

I could never have dreamed of the value of this book - I bought it and was amazed! This book is a must-have for every fan of the original series and real trekkie!The complete background of the beginning of the series, the problems, the costs and the riscs to make the series - all covered within this essential book. It was great fun to read and extremely interesting. Believe it or not, I had some good laughs too!Hard to realize how some things have been done and worked out. The real point in trying to catch a copy of it is that the writers were really there at this time! They perfectly know what they are talking about.Try to get a copy of that book as fast as possible. Out of print for some time now it is very hard to find and I'm afraid I won't sell mine... *g*

VERY IN DEPTH LISTENING!

This set of two tapes sete the record straight on alot of myths about Star Trek: TOS. Herb Solow and Robert Justman do a real good job in telling their version of the story. The story of a man, myth, his dream, the team that put the series togther, and of Desilu Studios, and NBC who took a gamble to help fufill the impossible dream. STAR TREK! Kudos to Herb and Robert or RJ for giving an unbaised version of the genesis of a television legend!

Great book!

Finally, there is a book which actually shows pictures of the Desilu set and where the show was filmed! I love Star Trek and thought that I knew everything about it. After having read this book, I didn't know even half of the story. Great work!