Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation

Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation Yvonne Fern (University of California, $20) This rambling exchange between Star Trek's creator and sci-fi devotee Fern reads like the script for a great final episode: Two creatures from different galaxies establish contact. Gene is rich, famous, a World War II hero, macho-gallant with women, emotionally buttoned-up, a religious freethinker. Yvonne is a baby boomer, a feminist, expressive, and a former nun. At first they don't connect. He dodges personal questions. She keeps dragging in the catechism. Spock as the Holy Ghost? Star Trek as a substitute for Mass? Really! His garrulous goodwill and her brave persistence clear some common ground. Sparks fly as they discuss love, sex, TV violence, religion, sci-fi classics, the human past and future. When he falls ill, she's at the hospital. When he dies, she gathers some of his last words into this moving epitaph. B+ -Suzanne Ruta