The year was nineteen fifty six. A young Gene Roddenberry approached the Stratemeyer Syndicate with a concept for a series of Children’s books. Sadly, after much work had been done, the deal fell apart. Gene later took his creations to the television screen, and the rest is history.

Fast forward to 1987. Publishing house Simon and Shuster, then the current holders of the Stratemeyer copyrights, did not want to miss lightning a second time. With Gene Roddenberry producing a new science fiction series, they took it upon themselves to create a series of Children’s adventure books – but in this instance, jumping the gun was frowned upon by Paramount Television and CBS productions – all books of this new series were squashed before their release – and copies of the completed works were possibly buried in the Arizona desert…

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And, of course, that’s a bunch of hooey. A backstory created to give this imaginative literary mash-up a home.

The real start date was February 2014, and I had a wacky idea. I had often wanted to parody Star Trek, but each attempt at a script or story was rather bland and felt like it had been done before. As well as Star Trek, I grew up reading and collecting Hardy Boys stories, and had a collection sitting on a shelf. However particular wires get crossed is often a mystery to a creative person (especially one with ADHD.), but with a sudden creative spark, I hopped online, pulled a small graphic of Hardy Boys number one into my iPad, and quickly sketched out this piece of possible literary blasphemy:

In the new world of the internet, a picture is worth a thousand shares, and after creating the final mash-up cover, I knew I had something very sharable, indeed. However, as a writer as well as a humorist, I felt there was a real opportunity to build on the concept. Why not truly take the world of classic Trek, and mash it into the Hardy Boys mold?

It’s amazing how these worlds actually do meld – the 60’s Trek with the 60’s/70’s version of Hardy Boys (I know the Hardy’s have been around much longer, but this is the Hardy era I grew up with). I expanded this world during the creation of the site to include The Next Generation reboot within the Hardy Boys reboot: Hardy Boys Casefiles – once again, these stories and series co-existed in the same time-frame – making them a fun and interesting melding, as well. The stories themselves are meant to reflect the style of the Hardy series, and my goal is to keep them short, so they don’t overstay their welcome.

The stories with the covers were great, but I still felt that some interior art, like the original line art in a Hardy Boys story, would really complete the picture. My comic art is passable, but very – well – COMIC-like – so I enlisted the help of Jill Lorraine Turpin to create some pieces for the works. As you can see with the below comparison, she has taken on the project with gusto, and really added to the atmosphere:

Jill’s work has been an inspiration. As she develops her style working with my text, I have been inspired by her visuals to shape direction. My solo work has become collaborative, not unlike the relationship between an actor, writer and director in film or television: Each builds on the work of the other.

Add to all of this the wonderful Kirk and Spock Logo, currently on the top left of this web page, created by my long-time friend John Patrick, and now there is a wonderful, fully-realized world where initially, a simple book cover stood. This was the basic birth of TrekMysteries.net. I hope you enjoy spending some time here – and that your imagination is fueled, just as mine has been. Thanks for joining us!

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