Retro Hugo given `Conquest of the Moon'

A 1953 Retrospective Hugo was given (for ``Best Related Book'')
to Werner von Braun, Fred L. Whipple, and Willy Ley's ``Conquest of the
Moon''.

Also retrospectively awarded were Best Novel to Ray Bradbury's
``Fahrenheit 451''; Best Novella to James Blish's ``A Case of Conscience'';
Best Novelette to James Blish's ``Earthman, Come Home''; and Best Short
Story to Arthur C Clarke's ``The Nine Billion Names of God''. Both of
Blish's entries later became novels, the first winning a more-or-less
honest Hugo award in the late 50s.

--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 5 Sep 2004 14:40:07 -0400, (Joseph Nebus) wrote:

Both of Blish's entries later became novels, the first winning a more-or-less
honest Hugo award in the late 50s.

....And yet, Blish became far more famous for his "Star Trek" TOS
novelizations in the 60's and 70's. The first 5 or 6 have become
rather important to Trek historians as the scripts that Blish adapted
were, in most cases, *not* the actual filming scripts, but mid-level
to as far back as first-draft scripts. Some of those particular drafts
have never been released to the public, and the adaptations give Trek
historians a look at the script development process to show just how
drastically things change between story pitch and airdate.

A couple of CIPs:

1) Blish used the first draft for "Operation: Annihilate", which had a
completely different title and a drastically, less happy ending. Of
major note is the fact that the parasites are defeated not by
ultraviolet overdose, but by locating a massive "space brain" and
blowing it to atoms. In the end, only Spock and Peter Kirk survive the
Deneba infection.

2) "Doomsday Machine" ends the same way, but Decker survives to retire
in shame. This draft was before William Windom urged Mark Daniels and
Gene Roddenberry to allow Decker to go out with a more honorable exit,
at least with a bang. That scene change helped make this one of TOS's
top five episodes.

3) The filming script for "The Cage" gave Trekkers their first look at
what was cut out of the first pilot when it was knitted together into
"The Menagerie". Oddly enough, Blish had originally intended to
rewrite the script with the regular series cast, but at the last
moment changed his mind due to Bantam moving up the deadline on the
next novelization. By that time, the damn things were selling faster
than loose joints at Woodstock, and the demand for the next volume
from booksellers was unprecedented.

4) Of note is the version of "Spectre of the Gun", which was then
titled "The Last Gunfight". What makes this version notable is that
Chekov did *not* survive getting shot by one of the Earps over the bar
bimbo.

....After volume 8 or so, after the series was in syndication and
Lincoln Enterprises (*) had all the final draft scripts available for
sale, Gene Roddenberry sent Blish an entire stack of the final
scripts, which he used for the last few volumes. The final volume was
released posthumously after being finished by JA Lawrence in 1977
after his death in 1975

(*) AKA "Majel's Home Business"


OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr

On Tue, 7 Sep 2004 01:45:07 +0000 (UTC), (Ken
Arromdee) wrote:

In article ,
OM om@our_blessed_lady_mary_of_the_holy_NASA_researc h_facility.org wrote:
1) Blish used the first draft for "Operation: Annihilate", which had a
completely different title and a drastically, less happy ending. Of
major note is the fact that the parasites are defeated not by
ultraviolet overdose, but by locating a massive "space brain" and
blowing it to atoms. In the end, only Spock and Peter Kirk survive the
Deneba infection.

Blish said in one of the later books (I'm not 100% sure which) that in one
case he changed the ending because he felt the story didn't work in print.
I highly suspect that this is the story where that happened.

....This might have been the one. I need to pull that particular volume
out of the storage boxes and read how it ended, because the original
first draft had Kirk taking the E back to Deneba, and after being
informed by Spock & McCoy that Peter will pull through, orders Sulu to
destroy the planet with a phaser barrage in order to kill off the last
of the parasites.

The orignal title might have been "Operation: Exterminate", IIRC...

OM

--

"No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m
his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms
poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society

- General George S. Patton, Jr