{"id":2389,"date":"2012-02-22T13:07:57","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T18:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=2389"},"modified":"2012-02-22T13:07:57","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T18:07:57","slug":"to-boldly-go-errr-go-boldly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/reading\/to-boldly-go-errr-go-boldly\/","title":{"rendered":"To boldly go\u2026 errr\u2026 go boldly?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Captain<\/a>
Captain James T Kirk<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s a bit of a confession \u2013 I am a Science Fiction nut.\u00a0 (OK \u2013 the Twilight Zone Blog back in November was probably a bit of a hint).<\/p>\n

It’s therefore not surprising that a few nights ago, I was seated in the balcony of a New York theatre \u2013 watching William Shatner’s one man show. \u00a0I grew up watching Star Trek\u2026 although, to be perfectly honest, it was actually Spock I really fancied.<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I was just a little bit in love with Spock - showing my geek tendencies even at a young age.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And yes, I know there was a grammatical error in that famous opening line \u2013 but I didn’t care.<\/p>\n

The thing about Sci Fi is that it’s not about the science. Not good Sci Fi anyway\u2026 it’s all about the people (or little green men or Wookies or whatever).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The science is just a way of putting the characters in places and situations where they are tested. The real story is about the characters and their journey.<\/p>\n

The first Sci Fi novel I read was Robert Heinlein’s Farmer in the Sky\u2026 written in the early 1950’s. It was the story of a boy who escaped crowded Earth to join a farming colony on one of Jupiter’s moons.\u00a0 Growing up in a small town in the middle of a farming community \u2013 I could identify with everything in the book \u2013 especially the desire to break free and find adventures\u2026.<\/p>\n

I kept that tattered old paperback. I read it and re-read it until it was falling apart. A few years ago, Webmaster John borrowed it and left it on a train. Divorce was prevented by his subsequent purchase of an early hardcover version – although I do miss my old paperback.<\/p>\n

\"First<\/a>
First Edition cover of Farmer in the Sky<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So \u2013 back to Broadway and William Shatner. Although the stories\u00a0are pretty dated by today’s standards, at the time\u00a0 Captain Kirk was a Hero with a capital H. Flawed, of course, as the best heroes are, but still a hero.<\/p>\n

My all-time favourite episode was written by the great Harlan Ellison and stared an innocent, young and very beautiful Joan Collins. McCoy travels back in time and saves a young women’s life \u2013 thereby altering the future. Kirk and Spock must reverse that change \u2013 by allowing the woman to die. Of course, to complicate matters, Kirk has fallen in love with her. To cut a long story short \u2013 Kirk watches the woman he loves die in order to rescue the whole future of mankind.<\/p>\n

The science was irrelevant \u2013 what mattered was Kirk’s pain \u2013 and Spock’s inability to comfort his best friend because of his own lack of emotion.<\/p>\n

On his Broadway stage, William Shatner talked about a career that has seen many, many highlights (Boston Legal anyone??) \u00a0but said that if he was remembered for his work on Star Trek \u2013 he would be happy with that.<\/p>\n

All I can say is – Thanks Jim.<\/p>\n

\"Jim<\/a>
Jim Kirk and Edith Keeler - I still cry when I watch the episode.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a bit of a confession \u2013 I am a Science Fiction nut.\u00a0 (OK \u2013 the Twilight Zone Blog back in November was probably a bit of a hint). It’s therefore not…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2389\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}