Cameos
Several other television characters appear throughout the book. In San Francisco, Spock plays chess with a gunfighter dressed in black who matches the description of Richard Boone's character Paladin in the TV series Have Gun Will Travel (pages 180-182). Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is credited for writing 24 episodes of this series.
The British TV series Doctor Who is referenced at least four times: the Fourth Doctor is described on page 13, Metebelis crystals from the serials The Green Death and Planet of the Spiders are mentioned on page 57, the Second Doctor is described on page 154, and Kirk recalls legends of a planet of stagnant time-travellers in the Kasteroborous galaxy on page 200.
Numerous other Western and science fiction characters make cameo appearances throughout the book. Page 13 features Han Solo ("a scruffy-looking spice smuggler") from Star Wars as well as Apollo and Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica ("a pair of brown-uniformed pilots from some down-at-the-heels migrant fleet"). Pages 153-154 feature Little Joe Cartwright and his brother Hoss Cartwright from Bonanza ("a good-looking boy in the dusty clothes of a trailhand just in from Virginia City, and his oxlike older brother") and Bret or Bart Maverick from Maverick. Emperor Norton and his dogs also appear. Matt Dillon (Gunsmoke), Lucas McCain (The Rifleman), The Rawhide Kid (Rawhide), and the Man With No Name also make appearances.
Finally, perhaps more a nod than a cameo, the actor playing Aaron Stemple in the TV series Here Come the Brides was Mark Lenard. Stemple is revealed to be Spock's ancestor; Lenard famously also played the role of Sarek, Spock's father, in the original TV series.
Read more about this topic: Ishmael (Star Trek)