Gene Roddenberry was the creator of a genuine twentieth-century cultural phenomenon: the Star Trek television series. It aired for three seasons between 1966 and 1969 before its cancellation, but went on to thrive in syndication. By the end of the 1990s, the various Star Trek manifestations included four live-action television series, one animated television series, nine feature films, and countless novels, short stories, technical manuals, magazines and fanzines, comic books, fan conventions, and Internet sites. There is even a Star Trek- inspired "language": Klingon. Though Roddenberry died in 1991, the utopian future he envisioned would continue to thrill millions of "Trekkies," as fans are known, via print, television, and cinema.

Growing up in El Paso, Texas, as an isolated and sickly boy who sought temporary refuge from his unhappy circumstances in fantasy, Roddenberry discovered science fiction. Though he grew out of his youthful shell to embark on...