I've noticed that discussions of Star Trek — especially as it enters its second half-century — focus on its "cerebral" nature, and how it addressed social problems and moral dilemmas related to real-world politics. That may well be true, but I think there's an even more important component of Star Trek's DNA which goes unrecognized.
I refer, of course, to pulp science fiction.
"Pulp?" you say. "I thought Star Wars was the heir to the pulp tradition, while Star Trek embodied science fiction's more cerebral side!"
Not so.
But let's define some terms. What do we mean by pulp science fiction, anyway? Obviously, stuff published in the pulps, mostly before World War II. A good description comes from this Web site (www.vintagelibrary.com): "Bigger-than-life heroes, pretty girls, exotic places, strange and mysterious villains all stalked the pages of the many issues available to the general public on the magazine stands."
Or, to put it more simply: stuff like what Doc Smith wrote.
So let's actually take a look at Star Trek — the original Star Trek, which ran from 1966 to 1969 on NBC. I can't summarize the whole series here, but let's look at the first twenty episodes, when the show had a real budget. In order, they are:
"The Man Trap" — shapeshifting alien salt vampire pretends to be Dr. McCoy's old girlfriend and starts killing the crew of the Enterprise. The creature is the last of its kind, but can't restrain its predatory instincts. Except for the shapeshifting, this is very similar to A.E. Van Vogt's "Black Destroyer," a classic pulp story.
"Charlie X" — kid orphaned on a distant world has been given godlike powers by super-advanced aliens. When he boards the Enterprise there's no one to restrain him, and his absolute power begins to corrupt him. This one is not really pulpy, because Charlie isn't defeated by a clever scientific superweapon or a good right cross to the jaw.
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" — an Enterprise crewman's psychic abilities are awakened by an accident, and, just like last week, his absolute power begins to corrupt him. This one is pulp because the evil supermind guy is defeated by a combination of a battle with a heroic supermind and a blast from a nifty-looking ray gun rifle.
"The Naked Time" — a virus makes everyone on the Enterprise drunk. Also: handwavium time travel. This one is pure pulp.
"The Enemy Within" — transporter accident splits Kirk into Good and Evil versions. This might have been a pulp story except that I suspect most editors would have asked how the hell it's supposed to work.
"Mudd's Women" — shady character trafficks women to space miners using a drug to make them more desireable. This is exactly the sort of racket the Lensmen would have been smashing. Full pulp.
"What Are Little Girls Made Of" — archaeologists on a remote planet, led by Nurse Chapel's old boyfriend find a way to make robot duplicates of people. This is straight out of Doc Savage.
"Miri" — a planet just like Earth was ravaged by a plague which kills only adults. This one, I admit, isn't a pulp story at all.
"Dagger of the Mind" — the Enterprise visits a planet where a power-mad scientist has turned a mental-therapy system into a sinister mind-control device. The villain is thwarted by a scrappy dame. Full pulp!
"The Corbomite Maneuver" — the Enterprise encounters an overwhelmingly powerful alien ship, overcomes it via clever ruses, and discovers it was all just a test. I'd say this is less like Pulp era science fiction and more like a story from the 1950s Campbell age.
"The Menagerie, parts 1 and 2" — two-parter recycling the original pilot episode about the Enterprise encountering a world of superminds with powers of illusion. This one is pure pulp — a fight with giant space Cossacks, green-skinned dancing girls, an ancient world of decadent superminds, and Captain Pike triumphs via steely will, cleverness, and the help of not one but two scrappy dames.
"The Conscience of the King" — the Enterprise transports an acting troupe which may contain Hitler. Not pulp. Arguably not even science fiction, as you could tell the same story aboard a steamer in the 1950s.
"Balance of Terror" — a really swell destroyer-vs.-submarine story in space. Not especially pulp, either.
"Shore Leave" — the crew visit a planet where things they imagine start coming to life. They discover it's an ancient alien amusement park which can read minds. I can imagine this one as a pulp-era story, probably played for comedy with an irascible captain getting more and more furious with his crew's "crazy" reports from the planet.
"The Galileo Seven" — A shuttle is down on a world with big furry hostile natives, and Spock has to come up with a clever improvisation to get the crew rescued. This isn't a pulp story, it's almost a perfect Campbell-era science-problem story.
"The Squire of Gothos" — the Enterprise encounters a whimsical godlike being who messes with the crew until his parents show up. Not really pulp.
"Arena" — based on an actual science fiction story by Fredric Brown, written in 1944. Neither the Brown story nor the Trek episode is especially pulpy, despite the premise of two warriors fighting to determine the outcome of a war between their civilizations. Brown's story is actually a science-puzzle story, while the Trek story tops that with a "take a third option" resolution.
"Tomorrow is Yesterday" — a straightforward time travel story about the Enterprise visiting 1960s Earth by accident, and the crew's efforts to avoid causing any paradoxes until they get home again. Not particularly pulpy.
"Court Martial" — a legal drama and/or murder mystery episode, hinging on the first depiction of computer "hacking" I'm aware of. Not pulp.
So, of the first twenty Star Trek episodes, we've got ten pulpy episodes. A solid 50 percent pulp. Not bad for 1966, a generation after the wartime paper shortages killed off the pulp magazines.
Now, let's contrast Star Trek's first season with that year's written SF: the 1967 Hugo nominees. There were 23 nominees for Best Novel, Best Novelette, and Best Short Story that year, including The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein; Babel-17, by Samuel R. Delany; Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes; "The Last Castle," by Jack Vance; and "Neutron Star," by Larry Niven. A really great year to be reading science fiction.
Of those 23 stories and novels, I have read or could find summaries of 21. Only 2 (The Witches of Karres, by James H. Schmitz and "The Last Castle," by Jack Vance) could be seen as pulpish in tone. The rest are Campbellian or New Wave, or unclassifiables like the works of Thomas Burnett Swann.
So the pulp content of written SF in 1966 was about 10 percent. In other words, Star Trek was five times more pulpy than the stories being published in science fiction magazines and books at the same time.
I point this out because there's a curious idea going around that stories (or films, or TV episodes) cannot have the fun of pulp science fiction without sacrificing the rigor of Campbellian hard SF or the greater attention to character which came with the New Wave.
A stool needs at least three legs to stand. Science fiction stories, in whatever medium, need all three of those elements. Without scientific rigor they're not science fiction. Without pulp's tradition of romance and adventure, they're not interesting. And without attention to character, nobody cares enough to finish the story.
So instead of drawing ever-smaller boundaries around what's real and proper SF, let's follow Gene Roddenberry's model and draw a really big circle, encompassing adventure, science, and literary quality. Then we can go where no man has gone before.
For more tales of places where no man has gone before, buy my ebooks: Outlaws and Aliens and Monster Island Tales!
agree! Tho known mostly as a hard sf guy, I try to stand on all 3 legs.
Posted by: Gregory Benford | 12/22/2017 at 02:49 AM