This is the record event of the year for Star Trek fans. Gene Roddenberry, William Shatner, DeForest Kelley, Mark Lenard (as Sarek), Isaac Asimov... it's like being at a convention with a great guest list. In fact, I think some of it was recorded at conventions, judging by the applause on some tracks. Plus there's a new recording of the Star Trek theme music. You can hear actors discussing what they think about the characters they play and the effect they've had on the world. You can hear Gene Roddenberry talking about his childhood, about network hassles, about science fiction. There's liner notes, too, with more information on Star Trek. Ed Naha, who produced the album, also wrote a long article on the show for Crawdaddy magazine. There's a sidebar about the LP, and the whole article could serve as a companion piece to the record. Every real Star Trek fan should hear this.

This is an ad for the record that appeared in an issue of Starlog:

If you're still not convinced, try listening to a little of it. Here's a low-quality recording of the introduction by Gene Roddenberry himself.

In other record news... Power Records produced several record and comic book sets last year, but the only new addition this year has been a repackaging of two older stories, "A Mirror for Futility" and "The Time Stealer." One of the stories is written by Alan Dean Foster. It's not exactly on the same level as his Star Trek Log books. The story isn't long enough to really develop properly. The poor voice acting and the occasionally inaccurate artwork don't help, either. But it isn't really worse than some of the Gold Key comics.

Finally, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy have both recorded some spoken word LPs based on famous science fiction stories. No Star Trek, unfortunately, but Shatner recorded part of Asimov's Foundation and the Henry Kuttner story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves," and Nimoy recorded Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, and Robert A. Heinlein's The Green Hills of Earth.

Keep exploring the world of Stardate 7600!