Star Trek Monthly, Star Trek Magazine, Star Trek Explorer

 Star Trek Monthly, Star Trek Magazine, Star Trek Explorer (1995-2025) Magazine

How to sum up a tradition, no, an institution, a guide and  a familiar friend from the mid-90s to the present? It's tough, because reading this magazine, or its later variants has been a constant through my childhood on the cusp of my teens, across into adulthood and middle age and was the only regular connection to new Trek in the years when the unbroken run that I joined during the 90s ended with 'Enterprise.' To paraphrase the old trailer for Trek as a whole on the CIC videos, 'it has been my companion, my guide, my friend.' Maybe I'm being over the top, it is after all just a collection of words and pictures printed on paper and stapled or glued together. Yet it also represents an entire universe of content, both the filmed voyages of the various series' and films, as well as the merchandise, books and events surrounding the greatest entertainment franchise ever to be created. At the same time I don't feel sadness for the title's demise as I would have ten years ago or more simply because, like the fortunes of Trek as a whole, it had cooled my enthusiasm in recent times to the extent, like watching much of modern Trek, I read it more from habit than enjoyment. I suspect there are plenty of others who feel the same, no doubt part of the reason it had to close down, because if Trek was healthy and vibrant I'm sure the mag would have been able to be inspired by the source material to remain alive.

It's also true that readers consume media differently for the most part - I read Trek news off sites such as Trekmovie.com as soon as it comes out, while the magazine could take months to catch up to 'the latest.' For me I always found it valuable as an archive that marked the changes in Trek over the years, so it didn't matter it contained old news, it was a physical record of the life and times of Trek and I would never discard my collection of every single issue (even the ones heavy on 'Discovery' and 'Strange New Worlds'!). At the same time I had contemplated giving up on the magazine in recent years as I struggled to maintain interest in a divided, watered down franchise that no longer hewed close to the canon and excellence of its forebears, and consequently was difficult to inspire interest for me. As sad as the ending of an era was, I was ready to give up what had become a little too 'fan'-focused, a platform for ideological agendas, and a view that wasn't discerning enough, afraid of putting off viewers who may love the current crop Trek was putting out. As it turned out I kept some interest thanks to 'Lower Decks' coming into its own and 'Picard' Season 3 returning to a closer taste of the Trek I knew and loved, but right now the future for both TV and film looks shaky and uninspired so losing a magazine discussing such things isn't a hardship.

Everything ends, Trek will be no exception, and in a world which seems to be wrapping up anyway the trivial things of TV shows and magazines no longer carry the weight they once did to my young mind. I used to hope I'd be alive long enough to see the end of 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' and later, 'Enterprise,' as silly as that sounds, though it was hard to imagine life beyond thirty, but now I'm past all that and if I never saw more new Trek I could... live with that! (Okay, I do still want to see the final season of 'LD,' but after the Season 4 dip even that is anticipated less!). The achievement of the magazine is its longevity and I will miss hearing from the old actors and having that ongoing tribute to the greats of the past, following them until they were in the grave, encapsulating their lives - it's amazing to me that William Shatner has outlived the mag while most of his costars are no longer with us. It served multiple purposes, providing me with news on the future of Trek before I had any access to the internet, it was written by good writers that seemed to care about their subject matter, and it has been a most valuable resource for someone that was always fascinated by not just the storytelling, but behind the scenes details. Perhaps more than all the other features, however, what most excited me for many of the years I bought it, was the chance to see what like-minded (or not, in some cases!), people thought about something when I had very little connection to peers with the same interest. Communicator, otherwise known as the letters pages, was my favourite section because of that.

Back in the time of 'DS9' and 'Voyager' it was also thrilling to read synopses of forthcoming episodes that I may not see for months, if not a year or more, and by then I was fully invested. In retrospect I came to realise my enjoyment had been mildly spoiled by having the excitement of knowing this character was returning, or hearing the idea for that story long before actually viewing the episodes, but it really was exciting to have that burst of information, and increased the anticipation. In the early years it was also a monthly magazine (hence the name Star Trek Monthly - logical as a Vulcan), so I was filling up on knowledge of the wider franchise, getting to know 'TNG' of which I'd only seen certain episodes, reinforcing knowledge of the others I had seen, including the films, and generally enhancing my experience. Because Trek back then was something you grew into - maybe you were turned on to it by seeing some episodes (for me it was 'TOS' in the early 90s with my Father), which then led you to a greater interest where you wanted to experience that world more and more, and for a child or young teen it was a big commitment to spend money on a monthly magazine (even if for much of that time I was given a subscription or partial subscription by a grandparent which continued for many years - I didn't actively subscribe direct to Titan until relatively recent years), since saving up for the videos to actually be able to rewatch or see episodes I'd missed, was the main priority, so you can tell from that how much I valued the magazine that I would spend precious money on it even while collecting videos (primarily 'DS9').

In fact the magazine was responsible for really injecting the idea of collecting all the videos into reality when it advertised Mr. Benson's offers on Buy One, Get One Free which is really what launched my video collecting in earnest - for a schoolboy, to suddenly have the option of essentially getting videos half price, even for a limited time, was an opportunity not to be missed (Quark would've been proud!). It also began my collection of Trek novels as in the early years they would have an annual giant-sized 100-page issue which came with a free book. While the novels in general I've found to be quite poor on the whole, there have still been some well worthwhile entries in the series, and even when they weren't brilliant it was still a thrill to get a free book and be able to experience Trek in a different medium. Due to the variable quality of the books I never got into collecting them in a big way, though I still have tens of them on my shelf and collected every numbered 'DS9' novel in later years thanks to ebay, etc. So the magazine wasn't simply something to read, it was a gateway into the Trek world that informed me on so many areas, reviewing merchandise and books, models and videos, and while I didn't have the money to pursue all these avenues, nor did I really want to as only 'pure' Trek was what I was most interested in, it was all fascinating to see unfold before me.

My connection with the magazine eventually extended to contribution - no, sadly not of the paid kind, but as 'Enterprise' began to wind down and questions were asked about the state of Trek after that had been less successful, as had the last 'TNG' film (the first I ever saw in the cinema), STM started a feature where readers could send in story ideas and generally constructive input for where Trek could go. At least a couple of my entries were published (although one, titled 'Prism,' an episode idea for 'Enterprise' tying in the Changelings that had been sent out to discover the galaxy, was wrongly credited to an 'Ashley Stone, Staffs' which I was disappointed to see). A couple of my letters also found their way in, the last of which came during the latter years, during the early 2010s when my sister had crafted some excellently naive renditions of the 'TNG' crew in cake form which I was so impressed with I had to send photos. Around this time, perhaps earlier, I also had the odd illustration published, too, so I was very pleased to have been able to be recognised by my favourite magazine in those ways. My final connection to the mag came in the last few months when I happened to sell a couple of 50th Anniversary Kirk and Spock bookmarks on ebay to a certain Lisa Herrera in Canada (which then got lost in the post thanks to the Canadian postal strike at the time!), but foolishly failed to realise this was the name of a columnist in the mag who wrote about mainly vintage collectables, and which I loved reading. It was only after our business had finished I happened to notice her name on the feature and wished I could have realised so I could thank her for her great column!

Larry Nemecek was another great contributor who was there not from the beginning, but not far off, a terrific archivist and behind the scenes expert, whose column 'A Fistful of Data' was a great source of smoothing out canon conundrums, a fascination and strong interest I wholeheartedly shared with him. He's exactly the sort of person I'd love to have a decent conversation with on all things Trek for being so knowledgeable and so deeply interested, and interesting (if you've ever heard him on a podcast you know he's got so much to say he barely has time to get it out, bouncing from thought to thought!). But while the magazine provided some relief from the lack of new Trek in the late 2000s and 2010s with only the variable modern film series representing proper filmed Trek, it gradually became less frequent. During the time of the new TV assault with 'DSC' it became the sole official magazine, something I'd assumed was a new era, although reading the feature with comments from past Editors in the final ever issue I found out it was always official, it's just that prior to this it'd always kept its British identity with the unique approach to humour or the solidarity of always getting new Trek well after Americans. But it changed to become more comfortable to that audience taking on the mantle of the only title still going and I thought at first this may give it a lot of potential for expansion and a strong future, perhaps going back to monthly, having greater access, etc, but in the event it just became Americanised in spelling and reference and no longer felt like the more homely, relatable publication it'd been in earlier years.

There also seemed to be a shift in the demographics to appeal more to a comic book aesthetic of variant covers for superhero collector types from the mainly Marvel cinematic boom, just as Trek also appeared to be aiming for that audience more than the traditional, thoughtful sci-fi enthusiast. Add to that the physical size of the mag shrunk over time, going from sensible staples where you could easily open the mag and have it stay open, and a nice feel to the paper (I don't quite know how to describe it, but it was matte and not too thick or heavy, just right), to being glued in a spine (which will surely disintegrate over time), so you couldn't always read the central part of pages so easily, needed two hands to keep it open, and the apparently 'high quality' grade of paper was too thick, and worst of all, glossy, so any light nearby would mean having to adjust the pages to read them! All this may sound like nitpicking, but the feel, texture, size, shape, layout and design all contribute to the pleasure of reading a magazine (something you don't have in the cold, efficient world of digital). Oh, and I forgot to mention the pictures were often too dark as they started to rely on screen captures from episodes or films rather than high quality photography as had been the staple for the majority of the magazine's life. All this combined with the disillusionment over Trek's new direction to make it all less desirable, and needless to say they hadn't given away a free book in years as budgets got tighter and the world sadly moved away from the print medium. I'll continue to use my collection for reference and in fact I'm in the process of re-reading them all in order, as well as going back over recent years to read features or interviews that contained information about seasons I hadn't seen at the time, but have now caught up with. To paraphrase Dr. McCoy: 'you know, the magazine's really not dead, as long as we remember and read it.'

Star Trek Monthly: *****
Star Trek Magazine: ****
Star Trek Explorer: **