Picard’s Michael Chabon and Six More Unusual Star Trek Writers
The newest installment in the Star Trek franchise has an unusual writer and showrunner: best-selling novelist Michael Chabon. In fact, Chabon was part of the team that created Star Trek: Picard, the CBS All Access series starring Patrick Stewart returning to his role as the venerable Captain Jean-Luc Picard of The Next Generation.
Chabon’s involvement in science fiction may come as a surprise for those familiar with his literary fiction. Chabon is the author of several best-selling novels, including The Wonder Boys (1995), made into a movie starring Michael Douglas in 2000, and the critically acclaimed The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay (2000), which garnered him the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001.
But Chabon has always displayed an affinity for science fiction and geek culture. Cavalier and Klay explores the early days of the comic book industry. A later novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (2007), presents an alternative history. Chabon has also written several science fiction and horror stories and a comic book series called The Escapist. He’s also contributed to several SF ventures in film and TV, including Spider-Man 2. A long-time fan of Star Trek, Chabon previously wrote two episodes of the CBS All Access series Star Trek: Short Treks, and that’s what set him on the path to Picard.
Since The Original Series, the Star Trek universe has attracted a number of writers who were well known for other achievements. Here are six you may not know about.
Harlan Ellison. Author of 10 science fiction novels and novellas and hundreds of short stories, Ellison (1934–2018) made frequent forays into writing scripts for movies and television, including for Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and Babylon 5. His episode for Star Trek: The Original Series was titled “The City on the Edge of Forever” (1967).
The story involves Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly) accidentally time-traveling to the 1930s and changing history. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Spock (Leonard Nimoy) must then go back in time to undo the damage. The episode is considered one of the best of TOS and received the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and an award from the Writers Guild of America.
Trouble is, Ellison reportedly hated it. Although he was credited as the sole writer, several other Star Trek writers made changes to his original screen play. In 1995, Ellison published The City on the Edge of Forever: The Original Screenplay as an effort to tell the story the way he wanted it told.
Leonard Mlodinow. Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist with a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. He’s worked at CalTech and the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics. He co-authored A Briefer History of Time (2005) with Stephen Hawking and wrote several popular science books, including The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives (2008).
Like many serious scientists, Mlodinow seems to have an interest in Star Trek. In 1989, he co-wrote the episode “The Dauphin” for Star Trek: The Next Generation along with TNG writer Scott Rubenstein. The episode features young Ensign Wesley Crusher (Wil Wheaton), who develops a crush on an alien royal the Enterprise is transporting. Mlodinow said he was excited to join the Star Trek writing crew in order to “put real science in the science fiction” but soon learned that the franchise’s success wasn’t about real science at all. Instead, it was about speculating what might be possible in the future. “My job wasn’t to put real science into Star Trek, but to imagine new ideas that hadn’t yet been thought of,” he wrote in a 2009 essay for Newsweek.
Nick Sagan. Yes, the surname is familiar. Sagan is the son of Carl Sagan, famed scientist, writer, and TV host, and his second wife, Linda Salzman, a writer who helped co-produce the Golden Record that was sent off with the Voyager space probe in 1977. Nick was only 6 years old when he recorded a greeting on that record, “Hello from the children of Planet Earth.” (You can hear it here.)
But parentage aside, Nick Sagan is an accomplished author of a science fiction trilogy of novels, Idlewild (2003), Edenborn (2004), and Everfree (2006) and has written for a number of television series.. He wrote two episodes for Star Trek: The Next Generation and five for Star Trek: Voyager.
Harry Kloor. Harry “Doc” Kloor has two PhDs from Purdue University in physics and chemistry. He’s been an advisor for the X Prize Foundation, which encourages scientific exploration and technological innovation, and has consulted for NASA, the National Security Project, and other high-profile organizations.
Kloor has also written and produced a number of projects for film and TV. He wrote six episodes for Star Trek: Voyager (including one that was not produced).
Larry Niven. Niven is an award-winning science fiction writer best known for the novel Ringworld (1970). He wrote the episode “The Slaver Weapon” for Star Trek: The Animated Series, which he adapted from a short story called “The Soft Weapon,” published in 1967.
Most surprisingly, Niven advised President Ronald Reagan on his Strategic Defense Initiative (dubbed the “Star Wars” by political opponents).
Walter Koenig. Several Star Trek cast members, including William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and Jonathan Frakes, have contributed to the television series and movies by writing, directing, or producing, but who knew that the actor who portrayed the lovable Russian from The Original Series, Ensign Pavel Chekov, was also a writer? In fact, Koenig has written at least seven teleplays, including “The Infinite Vulcan” for Star Trek: The Animated Series. It’s interesting to note that the character of Chekov was not included in the cast for so Koenig has no acting credits for The Animated Series.
