Probably The Last Thing I'll Ever Say About "Worlds Enough and Time"

SFWA has decreed that it is indeed eligible for the Nebula Award it was nominated for, and the director/writer, Marc Scott Zicree, has written a long, Hollywood-style account of how wonderful and special and professional the experience was.

OK, fine. I'll stop grumping about it in comments on SF Awards Watch.

Maybe it is authorized ...but, still, reading Zicree's essay, I'm struck that there's still absolutely no hint of a legal relationship between "Star Trek: New Voyages" (or whatever they're calling it this week) and Viacom, the corporation that actually owns all of the trademarks and copyrights pertaining to Star Trek. I see a whole lot of "these creative folks think it's awesome" and a helping of "Paramount knows about it and hasn't sued us," but no "and they didn't even ask for any changes!" Zicree also states that this project doesn't violate their copyright...when, obviously, it's the trademark rights in characters like Kirk, McCoy, Spock and so on that are most important. Maybe I'm just a cynic, always looking for the worst side of things; that happens a lot.

And maybe saying, "well, some people were paid, some of the time" is enough to make something professional in Hollywood.

And maybe SFWA collectively does want to honor Star Trek and similar skiffy things...but only when they're big and flashy and on TV, never when they're written down on paper (which is, of course, what most of them do in the field the vast majority of the time -- write things on paper meant to be read on paper). It's certainly their prerogative to make those distinctions.

But, as I keep thinking about what I don't like about the situation, I've come to think that the most dangerous aspect here is how backwards-looking SFWA (and much of the American SF-writing establishment in general) has become. The "Worlds Enough and Time" project is deeply, deeply fannish in both the best and worst ways -- the best, because it shows a large number of people working together to do something they love, and do it well; and the worst, because it's an obsessive attempt to replicate a vision of the future from forty years ago, as if, with enough willpower and dedication, they could change actual history and get the world they thought they wanted as young fen.

Folks, I was born in 1969, the year "Worlds Enough and Time" tries to pretend it was created in. (Matter of fact, in a nicely ironic note, I see that the very last episode of original Trek aired the day before I was born.) I'm nearly forty. And the US median age is less than that -- more than half the population wasn't even born when the old, hammy Trek went off the air. It's ancient re-runs for most of us.

Dream some new dreams, why don't you? This one is way past its sell-by date. SFWA needs some of tomorrow's tomorrows; it's had far too many of yesterday's already.