'I am Beautiful' by Joshua & Nathan Flynn
Spot, the Klingon cat of terror
Star T*REK (circa 1980)The March, 1981 issue of Starlog profiled SF/fantasy artist Walter Velez. One of the works reproduced was cover art for a book called Star T*REK. According to the caption, this was "a Berkeley book by Jeff Rovin that was never published for fear of a Paramount lawsuit." Judging by the cover, this would have been a parody. The cover by Velez featured the Enterprise (movie-style, but with propellers on the nacelles) at the top, with a crazed McCoy in a bloody lab coat, Kirk with a ludicrous number of medals and ribbons on a TMP-style uniform, and Spock with a dog snout and floppy ears below.Jeff Rovin has written dozens of books, including joke books, video game books, show biz biographies, and novels in Tom Clancy's Op-Center series. I asked him on the Scarlet Street forum about the book:Yes, I wrote a parody of the first Star Trek film. It was called STAR T'REK and the nemesis was an intergalactic ship that Towed wREcKs until it went mad and started towing all kinds of ships. There was nothing infringing about it (the Spock character was a half-Dalmatian, Spot, and ship Enderby had a Brit Lit loving computer), but Berkley was owned by MCA at the time and Universal gave in to "brother" Paramount.We had already gone to bound galleys with a cover, etc.... (Don't have a copy, alas. Part of my settlement with MCA was that I'd give them my copies in exchange for a new two-book deal. I was dumb. I really did give them all my copies.)
