Morgan Gendel

If my debut sci-fi novel, PLANET 6, looks like a retro pulp book from long, long ago, that’s intentional. While I’m best known as writer of the TV episode The Hollywood Reporter calls “Trek’s most beloved story” (STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION episode “THE INNER LIGHT”), PLANET 6 leans more toward the swashbuckling action adventure of another of my Trek episodes, “STARSHIP MINE.” Which in turn was an homage to the fisticuff-laden run-and-jump of the original STAR TREK series.

Other influences stewing around in my wetworks over the years include STAR WARS, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, GOLDFINGER, THE IPCRESS FILE, THE LONE RANGER, THE MARK OF ZORRO (1940) and everything by Isaac Asimov. I was friends with Stan Lee for many years, so I’m pretty sure I owe him a nod for the Silver Surfer, too. As you’ll read in the book’s preface, there is a long history (in my head) of peacekeepers using Flying Discs as their preferred mode of transportation.

I could go on and on about my various achievements, but if you search for my name on Amazon that will tell (almost) the whole story: a raft of TREK and LAW & ORDER episodes; a SPIDER-MAN series I did for MTV of all places; and a goofy book I wrote 40 years ago called THE COMPLETE BOOK OF SLEEPING which I had no idea was still available. That one only makes sense if you were alive to read THE COMPLETE BOOK OF RUNNING, which was a big hit and the target of my spoofery. (How to run? Well for starters, FAST, especially if bad guys are shooting at you, which happened in at least half of the TV episodes I wrote. I approach the challenge of How to Sleep with exactly the same reverence.)

And here’s something you won’t hear many TV or fiction writers say about themselves: I was a finalist – twice! – for a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts grant for HABOLITH, a transformable habitat made from regolith, aka soil, which I conceived for use on Mars, the moon, and hopefully on Earth as homeless and refugee shelters, too.

So you see, I have my serious side, too. That’s occasionally on display in PLANET 6, but mainly, it’s a good yarn that I know you’ll enjoy.