Rating: 
Summary: What an eye opener!
Review: I felt this book opened my eyes to what the american asians went through. I am too young to know about internment camps personally, but appalled to read about them. Very shameful at this day and age to think we could do that to other people. Enjoyed reading his life and all the many things he has gone through and the people he has known. Great Book!
Rating:
Summary: "A Well Written novel about a television legend"
Review: I found it a Wonderful heart warming novel. What I liked about it, was that most of it wasn't about Mr. Takei's acting career. It was about people. People from his rough childhood to his fame - filled adulthood. He expressed his feelings about the other Star Trek actors without being cold and blunt.
Rating: 
Summary: Very interesting
Review: I just finished George's book this morning. I found the beginning of the book to be interesting and it grew even more interesting when I reached his Star Trek days. All in all, it's a very interesting book. You should def. read it if you are a ST fan.Also, if you want more details about Shatner you should check out this book. I've read Walter's, Nichelle's, James, and Leonard's book. Leonard didn't really mention anything bad about Shatner. James summed it up with one line of 'I don't really like that man.' Nichelle waited until the very end to talk about Shatner, but even then she didn't really go deep with details. Walter skimmed the water a bit with details, but he didn't really go into the dirt either. George told about a few Shatner stories, but he didn't really diss either. If Shatner was that a much of a pain, I toast each ST member for not throwing all the dirt in the book in order to sell it. Good job guys!
Rating:
Summary: Very interesting
Review: I just finished George's book this morning. I found the beginning of the book to be interesting and it grew even more interesting when I reached his Star Trek days. All in all, it's a very interesting book. You should def. read it if you are a ST fan. Also, if you want more details about Shatner you should check out this book. I've read Walter's, Nichelle's, James, and Leonard's book. Leonard didn't really mention anything bad about Shatner. James summed it up with one line of 'I don't really like that man.' Nichelle waited until the very end to talk about Shatner, but even then she didn't really go deep with details. Walter skimmed the water a bit with details, but he didn't really go into the dirt either. George told about a few Shatner stories, but he didn't really diss either. If Shatner was that a much of a pain, I toast each ST member for not throwing all the dirt in the book in order to sell it. Good job guys!
Rating:
Summary: Personal Favorite
Review: I very much enjoyed Mr.Takei's autiobiography, which is actually the story of an Asian man's experience in America, from the time of his internment at the Manzanar concentration camp as a young child, to his student days at UCLA, and his subsequent struggle against ethnic stereotyping at a time of very few opportunities for Asian actors. He shares very painful and personal memories with us of his career and family; his autiobiography continues through his Star Trek days of course, up to the present, with many intriguing revelations. What makes this book my favorite is that it is extremely well-written, in his voice, without the help of a ghost-writer. I hope this will not be the last I see of his writing. I don't know why one reviewer harped on George's comments on William Shatner, saying "he couldn't even finish the book" - strange comment, considering George's feelings on Shatner come in the middle, and constitute a few pages out of the entire book. This and Nichelle Nichol's are my two favorites from the cast, also written in her own voice, from the perspective of a minority actor in '50's America, and no less fascinating, in that she seems to have worked with or met almost every famous black performer at one time or another.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book from a very intriguing person
Review: I've read most of the books from the Star Trek ensemble. I, by far, enjoy most the books that are written by the biographer his/herself, such as George Takei has done. This is a true life story, and not just another solilquy of Star Trek life. His account of his early life is particularly fascinating (to quote Mr. Spock!). His unique insight, experiences, and literary talents make this book among the best autobiographies of any type. To illustrate just how good this book is, my wife, who is not particularly a Star Trek fan, grapped up this book and read it before I could! You most definitely DO NOT need to be a Star Trek fan to enjoy this work of art.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - only wish there was more
Review: Just finished reading George Takei's autobiography and enjoyed it immensely! George is a very talented & gifted writer who paints pictures with prose. He told very engaging stories about his family's triumphs & tribulations in America as well as his eventual rise to Sulu in the Star Trek juggernaut. His book provides a very honest & compelling view of his family's ordeal in the Japanese internment camps in the US during World War II. In spite of this awful abrogation of their constitutional rights by the US government, they still believed and never gave up on the American dream....simply amazing! The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that his coverage of his days with Star Trek (both television series & movies) was a little thin. Given the colorful cast of characters within Star Trek as well as that dysfunctional bazaar called Hollywood, I have to believe there is more literary & comical gold to be mined from his life story.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book - only wish there was more
Review: Just finished reading George Takei's autobiography and enjoyed it immensely! George is a very talented & gifted writer who paints pictures with prose. He told very engaging stories about his family's triumphs & tribulations in America as well as his eventual rise to Sulu in the Star Trek juggernaut. His book provides a very honest & compelling view of his family's ordeal in the Japanese internment camps in the US during World War II. In spite of this awful abrogation of their constitutional rights by the US government, they still believed and never gave up on the American dream....simply amazing! The only reason I didn't give this book five stars is that his coverage of his days with Star Trek (both television series & movies) was a little thin. Given the colorful cast of characters within Star Trek as well as that dysfunctional bazaar called Hollywood, I have to believe there is more literary & comical gold to be mined from his life story.
Rating:
Summary: He's not the 'Sulu' you knew from Star Trek
Review: Like many other people, I've grown up watching Star Trek in syndication. Sulu is at the helm in most of the episodes. George Takei brings the role to life. I bought To The Stars on a pretense of it being another Star Trek book, but it's much more than that. Only the latter half talks about Star Trek, while the earlier half talks about his boyhood experience in Japanese Prison Camps, his adolescence, and his early career in theater and film. Later, he talks about his involvement in politics, which continues to be the other big love of his life next to Star Trek. He learns at a young age that in order to make change, you have to get involved, which he does. When he gets the role of Sulu, Takei talks passionately about breaking the Asian stereotype of servant or sidekick and being part of a show, which believes that a future where all races and creeds could coexist and no one would be held back. On screen, that's what the show is, but off screen, there's a lot of tension and ego clashes, largely due to William Shatner. It's painfully obvious that Takei and Shatner aren't friends. This tension goes straight through the making of the movies as well. Takei has nice things to say about everyone except Shatner and the producer Harve Bennett, who refused to promote Sulu in the first five movies. Ultimately, Takei fights for and wins Sulu's promotion to captain, but this doesn't happen until Star Trek VI, the last film with the original cast, and long after Harve Bennett leaves. I get the impression from reading the book that Takei has to work three times as hard to be considered an equal in a business (show business) that is unfair to Asian Americans. I have had the good fortune of getting to meet George Takei. I told him his book is a fascinating read. He's outwardly friendly. He truly is the way he writes and his personality leaps off every page. In conclusion, To The Stars is more than just a Star Trek autobiography. It's an inspiring book for all readers and lends itself to the possibility that dreams do in fact come true.
Rating:
Summary: Charming! An upbeat story by a talented man.
Review: This book is worth reading whether or not you're a Sulu fan. I found the chapters on Takei's early years in the WWII Japanese interment camps even more interesting than the Star Trek years. Though the fact of interment, itself, is grim, Takei lets us view life in the camps through the eyes of a child. Innocence and curiosity shine through. His memories are surprisingly upbeat, in spite of the horrors of displacement and prejudice. He recalls childhood friends he met in the camps (two of whom are named Ford and Chevy Nakayama--how wonderfully symbolic of their Japanese and American ancestry!) There are rich descriptions of Takei's own Japanese-American heritage throughout the book, as well. I enjoyed "meeting" his family through this book: his mother, who was determined to keep family life warm and friendly despite their barbed-wire environment; his father, who gave such a meaningful description of American ideals, notwithstanding society's frequent failure to live up to its ideals. George Takei's life is an embodiment of the true human spirit. My only regret is that the book wasn't longer. What was in the unabridged edition, I wonder?
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