Treks Not Taken

by Steven R. Boyett

The Final Frontier Now you can cruise the most hilarious sector of the space-time continuum, with this collection of twenty Star The Next Generation episodes not by the leading lights of the Western literary James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Jackie Collins... Steven Boyett transports you into the sort of alternative universes and avid reader or Trekker would

Genres: Humor, Star Trek, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies, Speculative Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Steven R. Boyett is the author of Ariel, Elegy Beach, Mortality Bridge, Fata Morgana (with Ken Mitchroney) and numerous stories, articles, comic books, and screenplays.

As a DJ he has played clubs, conventions, parties, Burning Man, and sporting events, and produces two of the world’s most popular music podcasts: Podrunner and Groovelectric.

Steve has also been a martial arts instructor, professional paper marbler, advertising copywriter, proofreader, typesetter, writing teacher, and Website designer and editor. He also plays the didgeridoo and composes electronic music.

Reviews

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has some hilarious parodies of many famous writers. You need to be both a Trek nerd and a literary nerd to appreciate the genius. Some of the parodies are spot on, although the quality is uneven. There is not much plot, he concentrates on capturing the styles. Some are utterly hilarious. My favorite was the totally sophomoric bad taste humor in "Lady Fed".

Crusher In The Rye is one of the best. "He was in his ready room drinking that totally pretentious Earl Grey tea, like it and his English accent would make up for the fact that he had a completely Frog name. What a complete phony."

Moby Trek (abridged) has interjections like "[Omitted: 10,000 words describing the name and occupation of each crew member, and the contents and shipping history of virtually every crate loaded on board.]"

This made me laugh out loud a few times. Great fun.

[Tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

As both a trekkie and literary nerd, this was a great collection to round out the year for me. The authors did a great job mimicking/paying homage to the styles of the writers in a way that was generally pretty funny and though the stories themselves weren’t the greatest, it was entertaining. Yet the plots were either scarcely there or forced to fit their style and while I understand the characters were caricatures, it was repetitive and derivative to see playboy Riker and sexy Troi and etc. in every story.

There were 5 very good stories that I felt captured the style of the author and the spirit of TNG which made the collection worthwhile to me:

- “The Ship Also Rises” was very Hemingway in the safari-hunting plot and the pithy descriptions.
- “All the Pretty Humans” mixed western and Trek with Mccarthy’s dialogue and spacey observations.
-“A Portrait of the …” was FANTASTIC. The Molly/Crusher final paragraph was amazing. It nailed Ulysses.
-“The Vampire La Forge” was just deeply entertaining and had the best story of the bunch.
-“Moby Trek” was hilarious for anyone who has slogged through the original doorstopper.

Overall, an entertaining read, but needed more female authors. 3/20 is sad. How hard would it have been to do a Virginia Woolf stream-of-consciousness or Jane Austen “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single Captain in possession of a good standing, must be in want of a ship”?

[Josh]

Vonnegut + Trek = Must Read

[Cheyenne · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 🌟

Treks Not Taken by Steven Boyett is a collection of short stories that parody Star Trek: The Next Generation, by using the writing styles of well known authors like Steven King, Anne Rice, and Kurt Vonnegut.

Okay, this was such a silly, fun, short read! Even just the table of contents made me giggle! I loved all the in jokes and fan references, and the meta nature of some of the stories. To avoid licensing issues, the author has to change up some of the names from the show, so we get some doozies 😂.

Not only were the stories satire of TNG, but they were also satirizing the authors' writing styles. This collection definitely makes more sense if you are familiar with each of these authors' voice, so reading the Sparknotes version is a good idea at the very least.

I recommend this for any Trekkie/Trekker that also appreciates the thing they love being made fun of 😂.

[April · Rating 2 out of 5]

Treks Not Taken
By Steven R. Boyett
1998

This short story is what if famous authors like Michael Crichton, Joseph Heller, Jack Kerouac, and others wrote episodes of the TV series, Star Trek: The Next Generation. The author tries hard to parody the famous authors' writing styles and the Star Trek characters and universe. Some times, a lot of the times, it feels like he tries too hard. There are a few hilarious stories, like Trek of Darkness NOT by Joseph Conrad and On the Bridge NOT by Jack Kerouac, but most of them end up being clunkers. To make it worse, I get the feel from the stories that he really hates the characters. As a whole, his parodies of the characters ends up feeling mean spirited, instead of in fun.

2 stars.

[Julie · Rating 1 out of 5]

In my creative writing course my freshman year in college, our assignment was to write a parody. When mine came back, my professor had written, "You imitate Mark Twain's writing style very well, but the problem here is lack of plot." True also of these stories.


Normally I would not have finished such a disgusting collection of disrespectful puerile testosterone-laced sexual fantasies, but TR had read it and was waiting excitedly for my commentary. I'm sure he did enjoy it...part of what I love about him is that he is basically a 75 year old 7th grade boy. Perhaps I'll only tell him the first part of my review...

[Tiara · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb on the cover says, "What If Stephen King, Anne Rice, Kurt Vonnegut, and Other Literary Greats Had Written Episodes of Star Trek : The Next Generation?" I will admit the author has an uncanny gift of imitating the writing style of other authors, and it had the potential to be really funny. However, I found the "humor" in this book too juvenile for my tastes, which is a hard thing to accomplish being that I am an avid lover of funny movies that feature what many people consider juvenile humor.

[Dan Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

A witty idea, and the short stories are very quick little vignettes. On the whole though, this wasn’t terribly satisfying. You understand the joke from the cover, reading the stories is a little pointless, and the writing can be fairly weak. More fun was skipping the title page and trying to guess the author being parodied by the short story. I do love books about books, so at the end of the day this 2 star book gets 3 from me.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a hilarious collection of Star Trek episode parodies- I'm not that big of a ST fan, but these stories had me laughing out loud. Imagine episodes written by JD Salinger, Ayn Rand, Herman Melville, Stephen King. Steven Boyett does a great job of capturing each author's voice.

[Jackie "the Librarian" · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly, this is not as funny as you'd hope. Star Trek done in cartoony versions of each of the famous author's styles, it wore out it's welcome quickly, as there wasn't anything more to it than that.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like both star trek and literature you'll get a kick out of this. The satire is on point and both aspects make fun of each other. Definitely chuckle worthy.

[Synful · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea how long I've had this book. I happened to fall on it after pulling it out of the box it sat in for nearly a decade. I went into it thinking that it was not going to be the height of literature. It wasn't.

Maybe I could've appreciated it more if I'd read original books by the classic literature authors this means to parody, but of the 20 authors it does parody, I've only read 11 and I'm stretching it on the 11th mainly because of course I'm familiar with Dr. Seuss. The rest, while probably semi-intentionally not well written, only reinforced my reasons for not having ever had a desire to read Hemingway or Vonnegut et al.

This dislike of said styles is apart from the content of the "plots" themselves using "Star Trek: TNG" characters and their well-known tics repeatedly. Also, this being a book written around the early to mid-1990s, I don't expect it to be any better on this front, but the rampant sexism wasn't welcome by me then let alone now. Whether that was supposed to be something done by the original authors being parodied or it's a 90s artifact of this book's writer, I don't know, but there it is. I can now chuck this book in my "read and will never read again" pile.

[Geetha Stachowiak · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not laughed this hard in a long, long time. And I know how hard it is to write comedy. This guy pulls it off beautifully while copying the styles of famous authors. He's ruthless in his descriptions of the most popular officers of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The thoughts he has them thinking and the things he has them doing are simultaneously cringe-inducing and f* hilarious!!! My face hurt from laughing. If you're a die-hard Star Trek fan, you -- well, if you don't mind seeing your favorite characters parodied --will simply love this. At the very least, it's worth a glance.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun read. I'm impressed by how Boyett was able to mimic the writing styles of so many diverse authors. I think my favorites were Ken Kesey and Stephen King. There is a running joke throughout referencing the habitual tugging of the uniforms. There's laugh-out-loud quips and groaner puns in each short story.

[Ketan Shah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parodic Star Trek TNG fiction in the styles of various well known authoirs. Pleasant enough but forgettable.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

As fun as it was funny

[James F · Rating 3 out of 5]

cute in places, but overall disappointing

until I got to Trek of Darkness, that made the whole thing worth it

[Cheryle Ross · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually enjoy parodies but this was awful.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently ran across this title and was quite excited. The author carefully blends Star Trek: The Next Generation with the writing style of any number of great authors including Herman Melville, Jackie Collins, Anthony Burgess, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Joseph Heller, Tom Clancy, J.D. Salinger, Kurt Vonnegut, Stephen King, Anne Rice, Ayn Rand, Jackie Collins, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, and even Dr. Seuss.

Boyett really captures the feel of the original works he is drawing from, whether it is Moby Dick or All the Places You'll Go. The tone of the various pieces of literature are melded nicely as he draws in a lot of the original intents of those works while also highlighting a number of perspectives of fans about the characters and settings that make up the Trek universe.

I found myself laughing out loud a few times. Readers should be warned that the author has done nothing to spare them of strong language and very awkward, unique sexual situations that seem to work. As with all collections of stories, some are not as strong as others, but they are well-crafted overall. This is a particular treat for those familiar with the works being mirrored and are also fans of Star Trek.

[Clackamas · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was very entertained by this one. It is now my new bathroom book.

*Note: be sure to take the following points into account when deciding whether to read this book*

1. I am a pretty big geek and count the end of Star Trek Enterprise, which marked the end of the Star Trek franchise, as one of the most tragic moments in television history (though it must be noted that part of my grief over the end of the series was due to my huge crushes on Scott Bakula and Connor Trinneer).

2. The only people that regularly visit my home are my Dungeons & Dragons buddies (also geeks, of course). They will all enjoy reading these spoofs on Star Trek on their particularly long bathroom breaks (keep in mind that gamers tend to live on Mt Dew).

3. My enjoyment of a book does not translate into actual literary merit (as anyone who has looked throuhg my "made-me-who-i-am" and "all-time-loves" shelves can attest).

That said, if you are both a reader, and a Star Trek, Stargate, Sliders, or any of the other truly geeky sci-fi programs fan, you'll probably get a kick out of this one too.

[Jerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stephen Boyett and a couple of friends wonder, what would Star Trek: The Next Generation have been like written by, say, Jack Kerouac, or Stephen King, or Jackie Collins or Tom Robbins? They take on twenty authors, from at least two centuries, and remake the Enterprise in the image of those authors’ most famous works. There is, of course, a Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Humans), since Boyett is a big fan of McCarthy.

A lot of fun is had riffing on the verbosity of Russian authors (Ayn Rand, Fandom Shrugged) as well as the unique verbosity of Herman Melville (Moby Trek, abridged).

There is a Douglas Adams quality to all of them, and that is in no way a bad thing. Even in the utterly alien, he evokes the Trekiness with bald pates, tugging on their uniforms to keep them tight, and Deanna Troi being somehow uniquely annoying in every alternate reality.

If you ever wanted to know what it would be like if Wesley Crusher were Holden Caulfeld, this is the book for you!

[C.O. Bonham · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really less about making fun of Star Trek: The Next Generation than it is about making fun of the writing styles of some of literature's most off beat authors such as James Joyce, Jack Kerouac and even Dr. Seuss. Although Star Trek:TNG is dumped on quite a bit as well. Such as in the story "Trek of Darkness" where a typecast Bill Shatner retuns to warn Stewart to abandon ship before his career is ruined. FYI this author really has somthing against Shatner.

Anyway most of the stories are just too stupid to really bother reading. They would not make good episodes and not alot of thought seems to have been put into them.

This collection of short Parodies reads like a style exercise from Creative Fiction 101: Choose an author you admire and rewrite one of your own Stories in their style.

[lynne fireheart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This parody answers the important question: What if famous authors had written episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation?

The result: some minorly entertaining chapters that describe ST:TNG episodes. I suppose it would help to already know beforehand some characteristics of the authors' style - that's where my limited breadth and depth of "literature" or "common (US-)school reading assignments" tends to show. But still, overall pretty readable - I believe I did chuckle or LoL in a few places.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

As another reviewer has mentioned this book is really more about making fun of various famous author's styles then ST:TNG. If you are a big ST:TNG fan but are not familiar with most of the authors that are parodied then I feel that you will be disappointed. If on the other hand you have read most of the authors then you will find this funny and enjoyable but In a low chuckle sort of way. I did. It is not knee slapping hilarity but a nice change of pace if you are currently reading some "heavier" books.

[Todd · Rating 3 out of 5]

Perhaps more of something that a writer would do in the privacy of their own home, as an amusing or instructive exercise, as opposed to being something worth publishing. Probably not very readable for anyone who isn't a Trekkie to begin with, but the fact that it's a quick read works in its favor. There are a few of these that work well enough for me to give it three stars.

[TheSaint · Rating 4 out of 5]

Imagine Star Trek: TNG episodes written by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King and Dr. Seuss! Of course the "authors" of these scripts never saw them produced, and if you read this parody, called Treks Not Taken, you’ll understand why.

[Suzanne Costner]

This title sounds silly enough to intrigue me. I am a geek.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

hehehe

[Paul]

Loved it. Great parody stories of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Honestly I didn't read much of this book. But the one that makes fun of Bret Easton Ellis is GOLD.