Roddenberry seems to have "drunk the Koolaid"...

Book 2: Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation. By Yvonne Fern. In the bag.

Only took me four days. Four of the longest days of my life. I had thought this would be a bit a light reading after The Italian. Boy was I wrong. It wasn't a tough slog because it was particularly challenging intellectually. It was a tough slog because it might just be the worst book I've ever had the pleasure of reading.

If I approached this book as a fan of Star Trek who was still not quite sure whether I completely admired its creator Gene Roddenberry or not, it only took me a couple of pages to realise that I completely despise the man. At least the version of the man portrayed in this pseudo-Socratic dialogue.

Fern's interpretation of her own conversations with the Star Trek creator has convinced me that, by the early 1990s, Roddenberry had drunk the Koolaid and had actually started to buy all the hero worship that was heaped on him by adoring but not particularly critical Trek fans. He seems, in the last years of his life, to have come to a place where he believed himself to be a superior being, outside of the human race, above it, looking down on it like some sympathetic, forgiving deity to whom humanity must eventually prove itself.

In Star Trek parlance, he seems to have convinced himself that he is an Organian or, worse, a member of the Q continuum.

In The Last Conversation, Roddenberry emerges as an egotistical, pseudo-intellectual in love with himself and his own ideas, completely incapable of giving credit to the multitude of people who made significant contributions to the franchise over the years and intensely jealous of anyone, the lead actors in particular, who have been regarded by the fans and the media as being important to the appeal of the various shows.

None of this would have particularly bothered me, of course, if there was even the specter of a possibility that Fern, the interviewer and writer, had intentionally designed and written the book to create this impression.

Not a chance.

If Roddenberry had "drunk the Koolaid", Fern seems delighted to have been able to lap up the urine that came of it from the great man himself.

The book is more about Fern than it is about Roddenberry and, if the Great Bird of the Galaxy comes across an insufferable ego-maniac, Fern appears to be a shameless sycophant intent on proving to the army of Star Trek fans who, like me, were guaranteed to buy the book that she is not only brilliant, well read and eloquent but also that she had become a personal favourite of the great man himself.

If she is not filling the pages of this book with her own take on every topic under the sun, Fern is throwing in yet another anecdote where Roddenberry tells her how brilliant she is or how much the same they are or how much he treasures the chance to get to know her.

The only thing positive that I can think of to write about my experience of this book is that I paid only twenty-five cents for it at a garage sale so I don't feel completely ripped off. Oh, and that I think the photo of Fern on the inside back cover is absolutely hilarious. Almost worth the price of admission by itself.

Oh well. Two down, 1121 to go. Thankfully, I'm moving on to The Romance of the Forest, another of Ann Radcliffe's 18th Century classics. I'll keep you posted on how it progresses.

Oh happy day! A farewell to the Italian

To quote Paulo, "O! giorno felice!"

I have finished reading Ann Radcliffe's gothic romance, The Italian.

One down, 1122 to go. And it only took me two weeks to read. Ouch.

Great book, however. I very much enjoyed it. Once I got the hang of the genre and the strategies it entails, I really got caught up in the story, the characters and especially Radcliffe's vivid descriptions of the settings. Wonderfully written, with plenty of Shakespearean tropes thrown in.

After despairing that I was only reading about four pages per day of this extremely dense, 400-page book (it is, in fact, a collection of the three books in the original trilogy), I decided I had to batten down the hatches and get reading.

And I have to say, Racliffe reads much better when you take a couple of hours per sitting to sink deeply into her world. I would highly recommend this book to anyone out there. It's a neat introduction to 18th Century writing, to gothic romances and to reading in general.

Next up for me, book number 2: Yvonne Fern's Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation. This one should be a breeze after Radcliffe.

Still reading Radcliffe and already behind...

This isn't going so well. If I want to finish all 1123 books before I die, I have to average no more than five days per book. So far, book number one has taken me 10 days. And I'm not even half-way through.

If I take 10 days per book, that means I won't finish for at least 35 years. I'm not sure I have that long left to live.

Worse, this first book, Ann Radcliffe's The Italian, is great. I'm loving it. It's dense, difficult reading with small print, tiny margins and more than four hundred pages. Very little dialogue and a lot of long descriptions.

But fantastic reading. You have to accept that Radcliffe's goal is to wring every ounce of tension from every situation but, once you have, it's just great.

And it's interesting to read something that is written about the 18th Century. I don't think the descriptions of Italy, its geography or the Catholic Church are very accurate but I'm not sure that matters either. It's a vivid, exciting novel.

I think, however, that I'll have to find something lighter for my second book before moving on to the second Radcliffe novel in our collection. Maybe a book about Gene Roddenberry?