David Gerrold on Star Trek, Science Fiction, and Secular Humanism
Audio here!
“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence, has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.” – Isaac Asimov
Perhaps more than any other kind of genre fiction, Science Fiction has been the one most connected to the naturalistic worldview and humanism since the 19th Century. Professor H. Bruce Franklin – historian and author – as written about how 19th century and post-WWII Science fiction was one of the most radical forms of literature the west has ever produced.
DAVID GERROLD started writing professionally in 1967. His first sale was “The Trouble with Tribbles” episode of Star Trek. Within five years, he had published seven novels, two books about television production, three anthologies, and a short story collection. He was nominated for the Hugo and Nebula awards six times in four years. Since 1967, he has published more than forty books including The Man Who Folded Himself, When HARLIE Was One, and the four books in The War Against The Chtorr. Gerrold has had columns in six different magazines and two websites, including Starlog, Profiles, and Galaxy Online. In 1995, he won the Hugo and Nebula for The Martian Child, an autobiographical tale of his son’s adoption.