Available to order on Amazon, Waterstones, from your local bookstore, or directly from the publisher Polaris, please consider my fourth published work, Lost Federations: The Unmade History of Star Trek.
‘An innovative and unusual account of Star Trek’s lost voyages that makes for a fascinating alternate history’ – Brian J. Robb, Sci-Fi Bulletin.
Here’s the official blurb:
Space. The final frontier. These were almost the voyages of the starship Enterprise.
We think we know the history of Star Trek. Born at the height of 1960s popular culture, the five-year mission of Captain James T. Kirk and his crew faced early cancellation, bounced back with a series of beloved movies in the 1980s and gave way to a fleet of successful sequels and spin-offs that kept on exploring strange new worlds.
In Lost Federations: The Unofficial Unmade History of Star Trek, author A. J. Black tells a different story. This is an alternate history of the franchise, one filled with roads not taken, from early 1960s feature-films and spin-offs, the original sequel Star Trek: Phase II in the 1970s, via epic planned movies such as ‘Planet of the Titans’ and into many untold episodes, arcs and character stories from The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager, all the way through to the modern era.
Bringing together pre-existing material over decades for the first time in one space, plus some new reflections from Star Trek writers and analysis of how it all fits into the wider cultural trends of the last sixty years, Lost Federations invites you to boldly explore a history you may not already know…
And for the unofficial blurb…
As you might know, in 2021 I published Star Trek, History and Us, my analysis of the franchise from a cultural and political perspective. During the section devoted to The Motion Picture, I started talking about several of the aborted attempts to get the film off the ground, especially Phillip Kaufman’s fascinating ‘Planet of the Titans’ in the mid-70s, and it got me thinking – has there ever been a book that brings together all of these unmade Star Trek wonders in one place? I couldn’t find one. There were some brilliant resources, the odd great book on one of these projects, but everything was scattered.
I resolved, in which case, to bring it all together. Decades of research and reportage had been put together on an array of projects and stories from the 60s onwards, so I had a bounty of detail to go on. The key was finding a way of connecting the dots and transforming it into a compelling narrative. It made sense to go chronologically, working from The Original Series documents that outline Star Trek‘s original vision, through to modern day series such as Discovery or Picard (though not quite Lower Decks or Strange New Worlds). I did also manage to chat to a few writers from the 90s era who clarified some points, such as Ronald D. Moore and Andre Bormanis, who was super generous with time and told me loads of stories that went beyond the remit of even this book.
My hope is that it serves to be a means of accessing this great, untold history in a compelling and interesting manner. Big thanks to Polaris and Pete Burns for giving me the space to bring it to life, with another piece of nifty cover art to boot!
You can order the book handily from the following places and all good book stores:
Amazon US (out December 5)
If you do consider it, my deepest thanks.
culturalconversation.co.uk 