Tribbles at the Thrift Shop

While rummaging through thrift shops Saturday, I found a book I'd never seen before but had read a year or so ago: David Gerrold's The Trouble With Tribbles (or, the complete title, The Complete Story of One Of Star Trek's Most Popular Episodes "The Trouble With Tribbles") Gerrold's current publisher, Benbella Books, re-released the book in 2004, but it was originally published as a paperback by Ballantine in 1973. Benbella has also been nice enough to provice a PDF e-book of their edition, for those of who who aren't lucky enough to have a well-stocked thrift shop nearby. The two editions are nearly identical: there's a few illustrations that don't appear in the later edition, and the Ballantine copy I have has 32 black-and-white photo pages in the middle. Most are just promo headshots of the actors and frames from the episode, but there's a couple fun behind-the-scenes shots, such as tribble construction.

Writing On Tribbles (well, not literally...)

No, putting a pen to the surface of a tribble with most likely result in a gummed-up pen and a cranky tribble. David Gerrold was a budding science-fiction author in the 1960s, who managed to get a foot in the door down at a new show...something like Wagon Train in space or something. That show was Star Trek, and the book The Trouble With Tribbles: The Birth, Sale, and Final Production of One Episode chronicles Gerrold's trials and tribbelations (ha!) on the road to creating one of the more endearing episodes of Trek. It's a pretty much the story every budding screenwriter has, but it's got Trek in it, and it's got tribbles, and, well, that's just fuzzy. The whole book is online, so you can read it at your leisure.