Living with Star Trek: American Culture and the Star Trek Universe by Lincoln Geraghty, and: The Influence of Star Trek on Television, Film and Culture ed. by Lincoln Geraghty (review)

As a cultural (or social) anthropologist and a hardcore Star Trek fan, I have always been enamoured of the worlds created around and within the Starship Enterprise, places which display a mystique all their own. How the shows and films reveal to the viewer scenes of cultures both similar and strange is almost a work of magic, drawing the audience in and leaving them permanently hooked. However, I have never explored the academic side of this discourse of future universes, preferring instead to enjoy the series as a fan. Now, with rumours swirling about the creation of a new Star Trek television series and with the release of Star Trek into Darkness (Abrams US 2013) imminent, it seems appropriate to review these two books which focus on the franchise, its fans and its influence on society.

Lincoln Geraghty, a prolific writer on sf, has managed both to demystify Star Trek and to increase my interest in the series. The monograph explores in detail the narratives found within Star Trek, and the edited collection provides a broader interpretation of the impact of the franchise on its fans, the media and the world in general. Taken together, they provide the reader with an extensive survey of the research conducted on Star Trek.

Living with Star Trek is divided into three parts: part I 'examines the historical, narrative, and mythic roots of the Star Trek text, highlighting the themes of utopia, community and self-improvement that are important to the study of the fan letters' (12); part II 'focuses on fan letters, investigating the ways in which American fans talk about and use the themes of utopia, community and self-improvement' (14); and part III 'provides an analysis of two exclusive texts: Enterprise and the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest' (15). Part I uses textual analysis to explain the strength of Star Trek's influence on its audience, with chapter two focusing on how its various narratives work as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony to create an ideal story. In chapter 3, Geraghty looks at 'myth' in the Star Trek narratives, in particular the American monomyth that 'combines the lone-hero motif with an inherent urge to do good and be redeemed, to bring about the salvation of those less fortunate' (57), and draws comparisons with the narratives found in the Star Wars films (1977-). Chapter 4 considers the message of Star Trek narratives in relation to the American Jeremiad the Puritan experience. Part II shifts to an analysis of fan letters. Chapter 5 explores how 'social change, as well as utopia, is an important objective for the fans in these letters' (92), and chapter 6 considers fans' 'discussions of certain forms of trauma' (103), demonstrating 'that Star Trek has always been seen as a form of support and counsel' (106). Chapter 7 sets out to 'examine fan letters that ... also contain individual accounts of personal self-improvement' (116). Part III compares Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (US 1993-9) to Star Trek: Enterprise (US 2001-5) in chapter 8, and the Star Trek series to Galaxy Quest (Parisot US 1999) in chapter 9.

I found Living with Star Trek interesting and informative. One minor weakness of the text was that parts of it read more like a dissertation than a book. For example, the chapters in parts II and III were short and focused on very specific analysis of textual theories or analyses surrounding key features of Star Trek fan letters without providing a broader take on the subject. It would have been useful, for example, to explain to the reader how the fan reactions to Star Trek differed (or not) from those of fans of other television shows. Furthermore, I...