The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years

With this volume, Altman and Gross complete their two-part oral history of Star Trek, which began with The Fifty-Year Mission: The First 25 Years, with verve. They begin in 1986 with the announcement of Star Trek: The Next Generation, going through to the J.J. Abrams–directed films in 2009 and 2013. An infectious giddiness underlies the interviews; people are sincerely excited to talk about Star Trek. Of the panoply of voices in the book, those involved with The Next Generation are the most insightful. This spin-off, after all, marked the biggest question in the series’ history: could they raise the show from the dead? With the success of Next Generation, the three subsequent series, and Abrams’s film reboots, it’s easy to forget what a gamble this represented. Luckily, it paid off, and now another film is coming in 2016, with a new television series scheduled for 2017. This is an intimidatingly lengthy book, but also a page-turner. Longtime fans will find a lot to chew on, and newer fans will feel like old pros after reading this splendidly crafted work. (Sept.) [em] [/em]