What do you think?
Rate this book
Star Trek #1
Star Trek
Circling the solar sphere in search of new worlds and high adventure.
Captain James Kirk - Assigned to the top position in Space Service - Starship Command - Kirk alone must make decisions in his contact with other worlds that can affect the future course of civilization throughout the Universe.
Science Officer Spock - Inheriting a precise, logical thinking pattern from his father, a native of the planet Vulcanis, Mr. Spock maintains a dangerous Earth trait... an intense curiosity about things of alien origin.
Yeoman Rand - Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly "out-of-this-world" blonde has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain on her first mission in deep space.
With a crew of 400 skilled specialists, the mammoth space ship Enterprise blasts off for intergalactic intrigue in the unexplored realms of outer space.
Captain James Kirk - Assigned to the top position in Space Service - Starship Command - Kirk alone must make decisions in his contact with other worlds that can affect the future course of civilization throughout the Universe.
Science Officer Spock - Inheriting a precise, logical thinking pattern from his father, a native of the planet Vulcanis, Mr. Spock maintains a dangerous Earth trait... an intense curiosity about things of alien origin.
Yeoman Rand - Easily the most popular member of the crew, the truly "out-of-this-world" blonde has drawn the important assignment of secretary to the Captain on her first mission in deep space.
With a crew of 400 skilled specialists, the mammoth space ship Enterprise blasts off for intergalactic intrigue in the unexplored realms of outer space.
136 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
About the author
James Blish
423 books289 followersJames Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.
He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)
Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.
He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)
Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews
January 6, 2016
Space... The Final Frontier...
I am aware that this is a quite longer review than usual, but since it's an anthology, I thought that it was the only fair way to express my thoughts on each story collected on the book.
A FASCINATING PROJECT
This is the first novelization published featuring episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series. Oddly enough, the novelization didn't published the episodes in the aired order, so if you are looking for the adaptation of Where No Man has Gone Before, the first aired episode (without counting the non-aired The Cage pilot) you won't find it until the book 8 of this collection. Yes, until the eighth book!
Also, it's important to take in account that James Blish wrote the novelizations based on the original scripts without being aware of any possible change on the final version of the aired episodes. Also, while he is credited for the novelization of all 12 books, actually he was author of like the first 7 or 8 books, later of that, his wife took over without knowledge of the publisher.
Still, this is a great effort since the 12 books, plus Mudd's Angels book, cover the entire original run of the now iconic TV series which started one of the most loved sci-fi franchises.
This first book features 7 stories and while one could think that they can't give a fair credit to them due being of only like 140 pages or so. I can testify, that while not having many of the usual ornaments of regular novelizations, they are hardly poor adaptations. One has to take in account that they were 45 minutes' episodes, so it's not like novelizations of other franchises like Doctor Who, that they were serials of 4 to even 10 episodes of 22 minutes, demanding a whole book of 150 pages to do a fair job.
Here, I think that depending the scope of the story, some adaptation used more pages than others, but in general, they were fair done. Maybe, the only downsized of this titanic enterprise was presenting the stories without doing the changes made on the aired episodes. BUT, even so, it can be a valuable experience to know how were originally thought those stories.
However, in comparison, the Star Trek Logs by Alan Dean Foster, adapting the episodes of the TV animated series of Star Trek are indeed a better work with more details in the narrative and totally accurate to the development of the stories once aired.
CAPTAIN'S LOG
My ratings were based on my reading experience of the novelizations, and NOT about my opinion about the original aired TV episodes.
Charlie's Law (aired under the title of "Charlie X")
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise has the mission to transport the lone survivor, of a crashed ship many years ago, in the planet Thasus, which is a teenage boy named Charlie Evans. Soon enough, the crew realized that he is dangerous due having powers of appearing and disappearing anything he wishes. The situation gets even more delicate when Charlie develops a crush on Yeoman Janice Rand.
It's an okay story, but nothing too inspired and the main issue is that the crew hardly will be able to resolve the problem but falling into the deus ex machina factor.
Trekker notes:
It's mentioned that James Kirk has 20 years of experience on space. At that moment, he was in service like for 13 years tops. It's possible that James Blish expected that a starship captain should be quite older, without realizing that Kirk was one of the youngest men to be promoted to captain in Starfleet.
Sulu comments that it's required 30 years of training to know how to use the helm controls. Thirty years?!!! At that point, Sulu is like 27 years old, and I am pretty sure that he didn't start to learn how to helm a starship, while inside on the belly of his mom. Maybe it was a ruse to deceive Charlie, but it's still... geez!
Dagger of the Mind
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise visits a revolutionary penal colony. After dealing with a crazy intruder from the prison, Captain Kirk decides to conduct an inspection of the facilities. He beamed down only with the support of Dr. Helen Noel, a medical officer from the McCoy's department, with a doctorate on psychiatry and some training on penal prisoners' rehabilitation.
It was an okay story, with the major issue that Kirk falls too easily into a trap taking in account that he should be suspicious since there is a reasonable doubt that something odd is happening on the prison.
The Unreal McCoy (aired under the title of "The Man Trap")
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise visits a scientific post on some planet due regulations of having to do medical checks, once a year, on the personnel of any outpost. The post is managed by a married couple, and the wife was an old flame of Dr. McCoy. What should be a quick and easy mission detonates into several suspicious deaths of crewmembers.
It was an okay story, with a fair plot, but it was too obvious that something strange was happening with the former girlfriend of McCoy that comparing notes between the members of the landing party could avoid many problems.
Balance of Terror
Rating: 4 stars
The Enterprise is patrolling the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone when the crew got into full alert after finding out of several sneak attacks to Federation outposts along the border, indicating that some Romulan vessel should be in the area. The situation gets even more dangerous when the Romulan vessel shows having technology to make it invisible to the eye and sensors. A deadly game of cat and mouse, interchanging roles constantly, begins.
It's an exciting story that I really liked. And while I did my best to focus on the narrative without trying to compare it with the original aired episode, and there are several differences that I didn't mind, but I couldn't help to feel that the novelization wasn't the same as strong since you will read only the happenings aboard the Enterprise, without having the insightful knowledge of the interactions aboard the Romulan vessel, and even not having the iconic moment when both starships' commanders had a brief but meaningful talk. Still, it's a gripping story specially since here, the suspicions toward Spock are stronger felt and clearly expressed by many more officers.
Trekker notes:
The story wrongly indicates the Enterprise as an "Enterprise-class" starship instead of the the correct "Constitution-class".
The story wrongly denotes Lieutenant Stiles as Second Officer, when that position is of Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott
It was hilarious reading that Spock was carrying at some point, papers bound to a clipboard. Geez!!! Even, while on the TV episode one can watch a real hardcover book, we are in the 23rd Century, people!
In this story and others, is clear that they were still thinking about how to refer to people from the planet Vulcan. Instead of calling them just Vulcans. You will read terms like "Vulcanites" and "Vulcanians".
The Naked Time
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise is asigned to assist a scientific team to observe the irremediable destruction by natural causes of an inhabited planet. However, the whole scientific team is found dead and the analysis of the crime scene indicates that something very unusual happened. The situation gets worse when officers aboard of the Enterprise started to conduct themselves on erractic manners and one of them putting the starship in danger.
It was an okay story. Honestly I don't think that the story really exploded the huge potential of showing the inner emotions and deep feelings of the crewmembers, specially the key regular officers of the cast. Sure, we have the now iconic scene of Sulu doing fencing in the corridors of the starship, but besides that, that honestly isn't too meaningful about getting to know Sulu's soul, you can't really see the regular cast members exposing themselves revealing things that they usually would keep in secret. Also, the situation is again solved too easy, involving this time at least a member of the crew, but without showing a tangible process of how the solution was found.
Miri
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise responds to an old SOS message transmited using antique radio waves. The message comes from a planet colonized a couple of centuries ago by an Earth human group with irreconcilable socio-political differences with governments of Earth. The planet seems to be deserted at first glance. However, soon enough, the landing party find a young teenage named Miri, but also they find out that there are many children aroudn, but also they discovered that now the whole landing party is infected by some unknown fabricated virus, making them to remain on the surface of the planet battling against clock to find a cure.
It was an okay story. It's interesting the social implications behind the original intention of the fabricated virus. However, first, the landing party is too easily fooled by the children (even taking in account some special situation about them) due not having a proper care of their tech equipment, and second, the landing party has too many regular cast members for thinking that it would be a "real danger" about this killing virus.
The Conscience of the King
Rating: 5 stars
The Enterprise is diverted from its original course due a false offer of new technology but there is a real intention behind the ruse. An old friend of Captain Kirk, the one who made the false offering, he is telling to Kirk that the owner and prime actor, of an itinerant Shakespearean theater company, is in reality a former dictator, the infamous "Kodos the Executioner", thought dead, who provokes the death of four thousand colonists as an intent to save the other four thousand remaining colonists due an unexpected famine. First, Captain Kirk, one of the survivors of that holocaust, isn't believing the accusation, but when his old friend is murdered, he starts to take into motion a risky strategy to discover the truth.
I loved this story. I don't recall of having enjoyed so much the aired episode, but definitely in its written form was a wonderful story to read. Shakespeare isn't a fortuitous element on the story but the key of its strength. Anton Karidian, the one accused of having been Kodos the Executioner, is wearing the Hamlet's murderer king attire; while Lenore, his daugther, is wearing the costume of the mad Ophelia. Insighful, ironic and priceless.
OVERALL PERCEPTION
While the stories are short of details, still they are an interesting reading. An odd thing is that while you aren't be in any doubt that James Kirk is the captain of the ship, always cool and in control of the situation, maybe due the selection of the stories for this first book, you will be unable to perceive to Spock as the impresive smart and formidable character, that he is indeed in the series, since he hardly do anything of usefulness in these stories. Even it can be easily understandble if people could think of Dr. McCoy as a more relevant character than Spock, having only this book as reference.
I am aware that this is a quite longer review than usual, but since it's an anthology, I thought that it was the only fair way to express my thoughts on each story collected on the book.
A FASCINATING PROJECT
This is the first novelization published featuring episodes from Star Trek: The Original Series. Oddly enough, the novelization didn't published the episodes in the aired order, so if you are looking for the adaptation of Where No Man has Gone Before, the first aired episode (without counting the non-aired The Cage pilot) you won't find it until the book 8 of this collection. Yes, until the eighth book!
Also, it's important to take in account that James Blish wrote the novelizations based on the original scripts without being aware of any possible change on the final version of the aired episodes. Also, while he is credited for the novelization of all 12 books, actually he was author of like the first 7 or 8 books, later of that, his wife took over without knowledge of the publisher.
Still, this is a great effort since the 12 books, plus Mudd's Angels book, cover the entire original run of the now iconic TV series which started one of the most loved sci-fi franchises.
This first book features 7 stories and while one could think that they can't give a fair credit to them due being of only like 140 pages or so. I can testify, that while not having many of the usual ornaments of regular novelizations, they are hardly poor adaptations. One has to take in account that they were 45 minutes' episodes, so it's not like novelizations of other franchises like Doctor Who, that they were serials of 4 to even 10 episodes of 22 minutes, demanding a whole book of 150 pages to do a fair job.
Here, I think that depending the scope of the story, some adaptation used more pages than others, but in general, they were fair done. Maybe, the only downsized of this titanic enterprise was presenting the stories without doing the changes made on the aired episodes. BUT, even so, it can be a valuable experience to know how were originally thought those stories.
However, in comparison, the Star Trek Logs by Alan Dean Foster, adapting the episodes of the TV animated series of Star Trek are indeed a better work with more details in the narrative and totally accurate to the development of the stories once aired.
CAPTAIN'S LOG
My ratings were based on my reading experience of the novelizations, and NOT about my opinion about the original aired TV episodes.
Charlie's Law (aired under the title of "Charlie X")
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise has the mission to transport the lone survivor, of a crashed ship many years ago, in the planet Thasus, which is a teenage boy named Charlie Evans. Soon enough, the crew realized that he is dangerous due having powers of appearing and disappearing anything he wishes. The situation gets even more delicate when Charlie develops a crush on Yeoman Janice Rand.
It's an okay story, but nothing too inspired and the main issue is that the crew hardly will be able to resolve the problem but falling into the deus ex machina factor.
Trekker notes:
It's mentioned that James Kirk has 20 years of experience on space. At that moment, he was in service like for 13 years tops. It's possible that James Blish expected that a starship captain should be quite older, without realizing that Kirk was one of the youngest men to be promoted to captain in Starfleet.
Sulu comments that it's required 30 years of training to know how to use the helm controls. Thirty years?!!! At that point, Sulu is like 27 years old, and I am pretty sure that he didn't start to learn how to helm a starship, while inside on the belly of his mom. Maybe it was a ruse to deceive Charlie, but it's still... geez!
Dagger of the Mind
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise visits a revolutionary penal colony. After dealing with a crazy intruder from the prison, Captain Kirk decides to conduct an inspection of the facilities. He beamed down only with the support of Dr. Helen Noel, a medical officer from the McCoy's department, with a doctorate on psychiatry and some training on penal prisoners' rehabilitation.
It was an okay story, with the major issue that Kirk falls too easily into a trap taking in account that he should be suspicious since there is a reasonable doubt that something odd is happening on the prison.
The Unreal McCoy (aired under the title of "The Man Trap")
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise visits a scientific post on some planet due regulations of having to do medical checks, once a year, on the personnel of any outpost. The post is managed by a married couple, and the wife was an old flame of Dr. McCoy. What should be a quick and easy mission detonates into several suspicious deaths of crewmembers.
It was an okay story, with a fair plot, but it was too obvious that something strange was happening with the former girlfriend of McCoy that comparing notes between the members of the landing party could avoid many problems.
Balance of Terror
Rating: 4 stars
The Enterprise is patrolling the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone when the crew got into full alert after finding out of several sneak attacks to Federation outposts along the border, indicating that some Romulan vessel should be in the area. The situation gets even more dangerous when the Romulan vessel shows having technology to make it invisible to the eye and sensors. A deadly game of cat and mouse, interchanging roles constantly, begins.
It's an exciting story that I really liked. And while I did my best to focus on the narrative without trying to compare it with the original aired episode, and there are several differences that I didn't mind, but I couldn't help to feel that the novelization wasn't the same as strong since you will read only the happenings aboard the Enterprise, without having the insightful knowledge of the interactions aboard the Romulan vessel, and even not having the iconic moment when both starships' commanders had a brief but meaningful talk. Still, it's a gripping story specially since here, the suspicions toward Spock are stronger felt and clearly expressed by many more officers.
Trekker notes:
The story wrongly indicates the Enterprise as an "Enterprise-class" starship instead of the the correct "Constitution-class".
The story wrongly denotes Lieutenant Stiles as Second Officer, when that position is of Lt. Cmdr. Montgomery Scott
It was hilarious reading that Spock was carrying at some point, papers bound to a clipboard. Geez!!! Even, while on the TV episode one can watch a real hardcover book, we are in the 23rd Century, people!
In this story and others, is clear that they were still thinking about how to refer to people from the planet Vulcan. Instead of calling them just Vulcans. You will read terms like "Vulcanites" and "Vulcanians".
The Naked Time
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise is asigned to assist a scientific team to observe the irremediable destruction by natural causes of an inhabited planet. However, the whole scientific team is found dead and the analysis of the crime scene indicates that something very unusual happened. The situation gets worse when officers aboard of the Enterprise started to conduct themselves on erractic manners and one of them putting the starship in danger.
It was an okay story. Honestly I don't think that the story really exploded the huge potential of showing the inner emotions and deep feelings of the crewmembers, specially the key regular officers of the cast. Sure, we have the now iconic scene of Sulu doing fencing in the corridors of the starship, but besides that, that honestly isn't too meaningful about getting to know Sulu's soul, you can't really see the regular cast members exposing themselves revealing things that they usually would keep in secret. Also, the situation is again solved too easy, involving this time at least a member of the crew, but without showing a tangible process of how the solution was found.
Miri
Rating: 2 stars
The Enterprise responds to an old SOS message transmited using antique radio waves. The message comes from a planet colonized a couple of centuries ago by an Earth human group with irreconcilable socio-political differences with governments of Earth. The planet seems to be deserted at first glance. However, soon enough, the landing party find a young teenage named Miri, but also they find out that there are many children aroudn, but also they discovered that now the whole landing party is infected by some unknown fabricated virus, making them to remain on the surface of the planet battling against clock to find a cure.
It was an okay story. It's interesting the social implications behind the original intention of the fabricated virus. However, first, the landing party is too easily fooled by the children (even taking in account some special situation about them) due not having a proper care of their tech equipment, and second, the landing party has too many regular cast members for thinking that it would be a "real danger" about this killing virus.
The Conscience of the King
Rating: 5 stars
The Enterprise is diverted from its original course due a false offer of new technology but there is a real intention behind the ruse. An old friend of Captain Kirk, the one who made the false offering, he is telling to Kirk that the owner and prime actor, of an itinerant Shakespearean theater company, is in reality a former dictator, the infamous "Kodos the Executioner", thought dead, who provokes the death of four thousand colonists as an intent to save the other four thousand remaining colonists due an unexpected famine. First, Captain Kirk, one of the survivors of that holocaust, isn't believing the accusation, but when his old friend is murdered, he starts to take into motion a risky strategy to discover the truth.
I loved this story. I don't recall of having enjoyed so much the aired episode, but definitely in its written form was a wonderful story to read. Shakespeare isn't a fortuitous element on the story but the key of its strength. Anton Karidian, the one accused of having been Kodos the Executioner, is wearing the Hamlet's murderer king attire; while Lenore, his daugther, is wearing the costume of the mad Ophelia. Insighful, ironic and priceless.
OVERALL PERCEPTION
While the stories are short of details, still they are an interesting reading. An odd thing is that while you aren't be in any doubt that James Kirk is the captain of the ship, always cool and in control of the situation, maybe due the selection of the stories for this first book, you will be unable to perceive to Spock as the impresive smart and formidable character, that he is indeed in the series, since he hardly do anything of usefulness in these stories. Even it can be easily understandble if people could think of Dr. McCoy as a more relevant character than Spock, having only this book as reference.
October 24, 2022
The book is basically a short story compilation that takes Star Trek: The Original Series TV episodes from the first season and converts them into short story narratives. I enjoyed these stories, delivered in this distinct way in a secondary medium (book form), and can see why James Blish and his assistants wrote twelve of these books. The anthologies give a unique insight as to what is taking place in the characters’ minds, and the exploration of those relationships with each other that fans have grown to love so much. In my opinion, these are a must-read for every fan of the original show. An additional word of warning, these are hard to find, so if you see them grab them when you can. Collectors' horde these like gold (and although they are not gold, they appealed to my Trek geek tendencies as if they were new and shiny despite being old and musty).
May 22, 2020
Star Trek,the original series, is part of my childhood memories.The shimmering transporter beams,the Kirk Spock McCoy banter,Klingons,Romulans and the great starship Enterprise.
After three seasons,Star Trek disappeared from the TV screens.The TV episodes were then converted into book form by James Blish and a dozen such volumes were published.I had them all,but no longer do.
Some of the episodes of the original series are actually very silly.But it's still Star Trek and I have a soft spot for it.I enjoyed these stories during the years when nothing else about Star Trek was available.
After three seasons,Star Trek disappeared from the TV screens.The TV episodes were then converted into book form by James Blish and a dozen such volumes were published.I had them all,but no longer do.
Some of the episodes of the original series are actually very silly.But it's still Star Trek and I have a soft spot for it.I enjoyed these stories during the years when nothing else about Star Trek was available.
August 15, 2018
Though these are shortened versions of the episodes, they still made for entertaining reading.
December 1, 2023
Wow, I read this one a long time ago! L.B.J. was in the White House and Viet Nam was escalating, M.L.K. had just been assassinated, the NASA missions were trying to recoup after the tragedy of Apollo 1, and it was a really bleak and scary time. Star Trek was a good science fiction television program, and it was reassuring and hopeful to see the possibility that mankind just might have a future. Blish adapted scripts of seven episodes to prose short stories and they were published by Bantam as Star Trek; the "1" wasn't added to the book's title until later editions, after further books in Blish's series appeared. It's interesting that the book is dedicated: "to Harlan Ellison, who was right all the time." The episodes included are Charlie X (which was retitled Charlie's Law), Dagger of the Mind, The Man Trap (retitled The Unreal McCoy), Balance of Terror, The Naked Time, Miri, and The Conscience of the King. Blish worked from the original scripts, so there are some differences from the filmed versions, and he did a good job of telling the stories clearly and directly. It was a neat way to get stories you hadn't had the opportunity to watch, or to revisit old favorites, long before there were reruns every day or on-demand anything or such things as VHS or Beta!
August 8, 2018
Well, that's it! I've now read every book Blish published.
Really not much different from the other ten volumes of adaptations Blish did (don't ask how I ended up reading the first one last - I don't know myself) except for the lack of a foreword. It was the release of this volume that created a deluge of fan mail that Blish would address in his forewords to subsequent volumes.
As usual the quality varies with the quality of the adapted original script. Interesting to note that the iconic image of Sulu brandishing a fencing foil has him wearing an undershirt here- he's famously bare chested in the episode. There's another go round for the Shakespeare inspired trope, along with the child with god-like powers.
Really not much different from the other ten volumes of adaptations Blish did (don't ask how I ended up reading the first one last - I don't know myself) except for the lack of a foreword. It was the release of this volume that created a deluge of fan mail that Blish would address in his forewords to subsequent volumes.
As usual the quality varies with the quality of the adapted original script. Interesting to note that the iconic image of Sulu brandishing a fencing foil has him wearing an undershirt here- he's famously bare chested in the episode. There's another go round for the Shakespeare inspired trope, along with the child with god-like powers.
September 5, 2022
This anthology of short stories based on script treatments of episodes from the original series is a fun nostalgic trip back to the days when there was no way of preserving an episode for consumption at one’s leisure, but it’s also a pale imitation of the show. This may have been unavoidable due to the constraints imposed by having to fit seven stories into a slim 136 pages. James Blish actually does a decent job of dramatizing key scenes and summarizing the rest. A notable exception is the lack of any scenes from the Romulan perspective in Balance of Terror, which made that such a powerful episode. In addition, Blish misses all opportunities to portray the bond of friendship and respect between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, which is perhaps also unavoidable since he would not have seen the program before writing, therefore missing the chemistry between William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelly. It will be interesting to see whether Blish’s approach changed once he had the opportunity to see the show.
https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com
https://thericochetreviewer.blogspot.com
December 29, 2022
Was a fun quick read. These stories were actual screen plays fleshed out from the television series. found ita ride down memory lane. Was a lot of fun and I would recommend these to any Star Trek fan.
December 29, 2021
Did you ever want to read novella/short story versions of random Star Trek: The Original Series episodes?
If you did, this is the book for you! Inside are condensed 20ish page versions of seven episodes from the series. I'm guessing, if you were a fan in 1967 and absolutely starved for any Star Trek, as outside of the show, there wasn't anything else, this would be for you. Without Wikipedia, video on-demand, bootleg TV recordings, or owning the series in some form of home media, this was all they had back then. How sad...I guess I should be happy to live in this era - even though Picard, Discovery, and anything made by JJ Abrams are dumpster fires.
If you did, this is the book for you! Inside are condensed 20ish page versions of seven episodes from the series. I'm guessing, if you were a fan in 1967 and absolutely starved for any Star Trek, as outside of the show, there wasn't anything else, this would be for you. Without Wikipedia, video on-demand, bootleg TV recordings, or owning the series in some form of home media, this was all they had back then. How sad...I guess I should be happy to live in this era - even though Picard, Discovery, and anything made by JJ Abrams are dumpster fires.
January 4, 2020
I loved Star Trek as a young boy but the tv antenna would only pick up a few channels, and Star Trek wasn’t on any of them. A long walk to a bookstore in Reading PA allowed me to entertain my trek obsession.
December 16, 2016
This anthology of several early Star Trek episodes, like many anthologies, is a hit and a miss. Some of the stories really captured the feel of the story and the characters, while others really missed that mark.
January 6, 2020
This review originally published in Looking For a Good Book. Rated 2.5 of 5
I first read this book in the mid-to-late 1970's. I was an early Trekkie. Youngsters today forget that there was no Netflix or Hulu or DVRs and we watched our favorite shows when they were being broadcast, and shows like Star Trek you could only see if your local station purchased the syndication rights. And it's because of this, that fans such as myself practically devoured anything we could find that would help us enjoy these characters and their adventures.
This was one of (perhaps the) first books to give fans a chance to relive some of the adventures. Author James Blish adapted seven episodes into stories to be included in the book. In many cases, his adaptations came from scripts - and not always the final version as it appeared on television. Even some of the titles don't line up exactly as we might otherwise recognize them from the screen.
What this does, however, is give us a little sneak peek at some character motivation as well as how a story sometimes changes while in the filming process.
Reading these again was mostly a nostalgic trip back in time to my early teen (even pre-teen) years as a geeky Star Trek fan. Where I once really cherished the chance to read these adventures, I now found the stories to be too short and really lack any depth of character. If Blish was writing these based on scripts and hadn't really even seen the episodes, it makes some sense that he doesn't quite pick up on the personal connections and the relationships.
Think about this ... there are seven hour-long episodes here in story form, in a 137 page book. There really isn't much here.
I did make me think however, how much I might enjoy having a popular author or two re-imagine these episodes in more detail. A series of novellas? If the price were right I could see myself buying them!
This book contains the following stories, based on the episodes:
"Charlie's Law" - based on "Charlie X" by D.C. Fontana
"Dagger of the Mind" - based on the teleplay by S. Bar-David
"The Unreal McCoy" - based on "The Man Trap," teleplay by George Clayton Johnson
"Balance of Terror" - based on the teleplay by Paul Schneider
"The Naked Time" - based on the teleplay by John D.F. Black
"Miri" - based on the teleplay by Adrian Spies
"The Conscience of the King" - from the teleplay by Barry Trivers
Looking for a good book? If you're a Star Trek fan, consider revisiting Star Trek 1 - short stories based on early episodes, by James Blish. The adaptations don't stand up too well, but the nostalgia is fun.
I first read this book in the mid-to-late 1970's. I was an early Trekkie. Youngsters today forget that there was no Netflix or Hulu or DVRs and we watched our favorite shows when they were being broadcast, and shows like Star Trek you could only see if your local station purchased the syndication rights. And it's because of this, that fans such as myself practically devoured anything we could find that would help us enjoy these characters and their adventures.
This was one of (perhaps the) first books to give fans a chance to relive some of the adventures. Author James Blish adapted seven episodes into stories to be included in the book. In many cases, his adaptations came from scripts - and not always the final version as it appeared on television. Even some of the titles don't line up exactly as we might otherwise recognize them from the screen.
What this does, however, is give us a little sneak peek at some character motivation as well as how a story sometimes changes while in the filming process.
Reading these again was mostly a nostalgic trip back in time to my early teen (even pre-teen) years as a geeky Star Trek fan. Where I once really cherished the chance to read these adventures, I now found the stories to be too short and really lack any depth of character. If Blish was writing these based on scripts and hadn't really even seen the episodes, it makes some sense that he doesn't quite pick up on the personal connections and the relationships.
Think about this ... there are seven hour-long episodes here in story form, in a 137 page book. There really isn't much here.
I did make me think however, how much I might enjoy having a popular author or two re-imagine these episodes in more detail. A series of novellas? If the price were right I could see myself buying them!
This book contains the following stories, based on the episodes:
"Charlie's Law" - based on "Charlie X" by D.C. Fontana
"Dagger of the Mind" - based on the teleplay by S. Bar-David
"The Unreal McCoy" - based on "The Man Trap," teleplay by George Clayton Johnson
"Balance of Terror" - based on the teleplay by Paul Schneider
"The Naked Time" - based on the teleplay by John D.F. Black
"Miri" - based on the teleplay by Adrian Spies
"The Conscience of the King" - from the teleplay by Barry Trivers
Looking for a good book? If you're a Star Trek fan, consider revisiting Star Trek 1 - short stories based on early episodes, by James Blish. The adaptations don't stand up too well, but the nostalgia is fun.
March 7, 2020
A novelisation of the original series - part 1!
November 7, 2023
These might actually be better than TOS. They certainly feel less dated. Or dated in a book way which is less dated than tv dated.
May 2, 2022
Great stories from the Golden Age of the Star Trek saga
April 26, 2015
This first book in the series (simply named “Star Trek”) adapts “Charlie X” (under the episode’s earlier working title of Charlie’s Law”), "Dagger of the Mind", "The Unreal McCoy" (which was the working and IMO better title for a.k.a. "The Man Trap"), "Balance of Terror", "The Naked Time", "Miri", and "The Conscience of the King"
This book, clocking in at 140ish pages, doesn’t much page count to the seven episodes it covers. The story “Charlie’s Law” is bereft of most description, (Blish apparently felt no need to describe the Enterprise in even light detail), but most of the other stories have some feature at least some light description at the beginning to set up the story.
Thishis adaptation of “balance of Terror” is entirely from the Enterprise’s POV, which helps to convey the tense nature of the episode very well, though the story lacks much of the cat and mouse nature of the episode and ends rather abruptly and without the famous “In another life we could have been friends” line.
The Naked Time has lost any of the emotional tones of the episode.
Miri is short and too the point, cutting most of the interactions with Miri and the children (this may be to its benefit.)
The Conscience of the King is short to its detriment, gutting all but the basic core of the story.
There are a couple of instances where the author seems to have been functioning from the idea that ships in Star Trek function at relativistic speeds. (also the cover of the edition I read has nice big rocket plumes coming out of the back of the Enterprise.
There are a few things about the book that make in an interesting read as a star trek fan, but its brevity and extremely shallow treatment of the episodes mean I can’t really recommend going out of your way to pick it up. However if you’re like me and you find it in the dollar bin of your local used book store I’d give it a read.
This book, clocking in at 140ish pages, doesn’t much page count to the seven episodes it covers. The story “Charlie’s Law” is bereft of most description, (Blish apparently felt no need to describe the Enterprise in even light detail), but most of the other stories have some feature at least some light description at the beginning to set up the story.
Thishis adaptation of “balance of Terror” is entirely from the Enterprise’s POV, which helps to convey the tense nature of the episode very well, though the story lacks much of the cat and mouse nature of the episode and ends rather abruptly and without the famous “In another life we could have been friends” line.
The Naked Time has lost any of the emotional tones of the episode.
Miri is short and too the point, cutting most of the interactions with Miri and the children (this may be to its benefit.)
The Conscience of the King is short to its detriment, gutting all but the basic core of the story.
There are a couple of instances where the author seems to have been functioning from the idea that ships in Star Trek function at relativistic speeds. (also the cover of the edition I read has nice big rocket plumes coming out of the back of the Enterprise.
There are a few things about the book that make in an interesting read as a star trek fan, but its brevity and extremely shallow treatment of the episodes mean I can’t really recommend going out of your way to pick it up. However if you’re like me and you find it in the dollar bin of your local used book store I’d give it a read.
February 19, 2019
✭
“Charlie’s Law” (alternate title: “Charlie X”), James Blish, D. C. Fontana (Teleplay Author), & Gene Roddenberry (Story Author). ✭✭
“Dagger of the Mind”, James Blish & Shimon Wincelberg (as by S. Bar-David) (Teleplay Author). ✭½
“The Unreal McCoy” (alternate title: “The Man Trap”), James Blish & George Clayton Johnson (Teleplay Author). ✭
“Balance of Terror”, James Blish & Paul Schneider (Teleplay Author). ✭½
“The Naked Time”, James Blish & John D. F. Black (Teleplay Author). ½
“Miri”, James Blish & Adrian Spies (Teleplay Author). ✭
“The Conscience of the King”, James Blish & Barry Trivers (Teleplay Author). ½
All stories published 1967.
“Charlie’s Law” (alternate title: “Charlie X”), James Blish, D. C. Fontana (Teleplay Author), & Gene Roddenberry (Story Author). ✭✭
“Dagger of the Mind”, James Blish & Shimon Wincelberg (as by S. Bar-David) (Teleplay Author). ✭½
“The Unreal McCoy” (alternate title: “The Man Trap”), James Blish & George Clayton Johnson (Teleplay Author). ✭
“Balance of Terror”, James Blish & Paul Schneider (Teleplay Author). ✭½
“The Naked Time”, James Blish & John D. F. Black (Teleplay Author). ½
“Miri”, James Blish & Adrian Spies (Teleplay Author). ✭
“The Conscience of the King”, James Blish & Barry Trivers (Teleplay Author). ½
All stories published 1967.
January 8, 2020
Back when I discovered these, I read and reread them to pieces. It's a tv show... it doesn't need the epic adventures and trilogies that I see published nowadays. It's Star Trek, and so it has to have a point (theme) and it has to get to it.
October 12, 2022
Gonna be a massive loser and admit that I've only just started watching Star Trek – I'm almost finished with series one and I'm living for it, honestly.
Wanted to start out with an easy read so opted for the adaptation of episodes I've already watched, and for the most part these short stories were good! They were based on the scripts rather than finished episodes so some of the character nuances were very off – and the line about Kirk being uncomfortable with Spock killed me inside just a little so I'm gonna have to go and watch an episode to cheer myself up.
I actually enjoyed the story of Miri more than I did the episode – it was a lot less creepy with Kirk lusting after the technically pre-pubescent girl. And McCoy was a badass which I loved.
Wanted to start out with an easy read so opted for the adaptation of episodes I've already watched, and for the most part these short stories were good! They were based on the scripts rather than finished episodes so some of the character nuances were very off – and the line about Kirk being uncomfortable with Spock killed me inside just a little so I'm gonna have to go and watch an episode to cheer myself up.
I actually enjoyed the story of Miri more than I did the episode – it was a lot less creepy with Kirk lusting after the technically pre-pubescent girl. And McCoy was a badass which I loved.
May 1, 2023
[Bantam Books] (1967). 6th Printing. 135 Pages. Purchased from ‘Jeff’s Books, Games & Bits’.
The first of twelve volumes of short stories, written by James Blish (and/or his wife (J. A. Lawrence)), between 1967 and 1977.
Drawing on draft scripts, the seven tales included are well executed and embody many of the social, political, moral and spiritual themes explored in the celebrated T.V. series.
The first of twelve volumes of short stories, written by James Blish (and/or his wife (J. A. Lawrence)), between 1967 and 1977.
Drawing on draft scripts, the seven tales included are well executed and embody many of the social, political, moral and spiritual themes explored in the celebrated T.V. series.
January 3, 2021
A mixed bag. A few of the stories are pretty thin novelizations, basically expository summaries of the early original episodes. A couple were pretty good but obviously dated and with plenty of filler sci-fi jargon. I'm reading these for the memories and in conjunction with re-watching TOS.
June 17, 2023
Kind of a slog. I found it to be quite uninteresting which made it difficult for me to finish.
February 7, 2011
We've been rewatching the original series of Star Trek lately, the remastered dvds in fact. And I thought this would be the perfect time to start reading the original Star Trek episode novelisations, which I've never read before.
This book contained 7 episode novelisations; Charlie's Law, Dagger of the Mind, The Unreal McCoy, Balance of Terror, The Naked Time, Miri, The Conscience of the King. All of them reworked from the original scripts into short stories, by James Blish.
I was glad to read the novelised versions of the episodes, as I don't always follow episodes very well when I don't have subtitles to help, and I thought it would be great to clear up the bits I couldn't understand. I'm not completely deaf, but I do have probs with understanding speach, and the amount of camera switching and other probs with tv means that I miss a few things where lip reading can't help me catch up.
But as it turns out, Blish allowed himself a little bit of creative liscence in the switch from script to novel, so certain parts of the novels differ in varying ways from the original show. I thought the changes were largely improvements tho, including a lot of things changed to be more technologically and scientifically correct. And I didn't mind that they didn't follow the show exactly, because the feel of thing was perfect, and I feel like the bits I needed clearing up were filled in appopriately enough for me. I particularly liked the addition of Spock singing to himself in Vulcan at the end of one of the novelisations, which never occured in any episode, but was fun to imagine!
I think after this I'm certainly going to try some of the original (non-script-based) novels too!
See my other reviews of Star Trek novels:
← Mission to Horatius | Star Trek 2 →
This book contained 7 episode novelisations; Charlie's Law, Dagger of the Mind, The Unreal McCoy, Balance of Terror, The Naked Time, Miri, The Conscience of the King. All of them reworked from the original scripts into short stories, by James Blish.
I was glad to read the novelised versions of the episodes, as I don't always follow episodes very well when I don't have subtitles to help, and I thought it would be great to clear up the bits I couldn't understand. I'm not completely deaf, but I do have probs with understanding speach, and the amount of camera switching and other probs with tv means that I miss a few things where lip reading can't help me catch up.
But as it turns out, Blish allowed himself a little bit of creative liscence in the switch from script to novel, so certain parts of the novels differ in varying ways from the original show. I thought the changes were largely improvements tho, including a lot of things changed to be more technologically and scientifically correct. And I didn't mind that they didn't follow the show exactly, because the feel of thing was perfect, and I feel like the bits I needed clearing up were filled in appopriately enough for me. I particularly liked the addition of Spock singing to himself in Vulcan at the end of one of the novelisations, which never occured in any episode, but was fun to imagine!
I think after this I'm certainly going to try some of the original (non-script-based) novels too!
See my other reviews of Star Trek novels:
← Mission to Horatius | Star Trek 2 →
November 29, 2017
If you were born after the advent of widespread video recorders, you may not appreciate the value such books as these had in the 1970s and before. At the time, if you missed something on the telly that was it and there was a rule that nothing should be shown more than three times. Even if you saw it, you wouldn't be able to watch it again unless the channel decided to broadcast it and you were around at the time. Consequently, books such as this and the Doctor Who novelisations were an absolute lifeline to TV science fiction fans, and this is their worth. One of the interesting things about Blish's versions of the stories is that they are based on earlier drafts of the scripts than the broadcast episodes, so the reader often gets an insider's view of decisions made by the production team. Also, in my case this was often the first time I'd come across the stories, and in one case I only saw the TV version in 2016.
Blish was vilified by certain sections of the SF community for writing these, since many people had nothing but contempt for TV and movie sci-fi. I have to admit to a lot of sympathy with that attitude, but at least 'Star Trek' provided optimism and liberalism to some degree to an audience which sorely needed such things to be portrayed sympathetically.
Blish was vilified by certain sections of the SF community for writing these, since many people had nothing but contempt for TV and movie sci-fi. I have to admit to a lot of sympathy with that attitude, but at least 'Star Trek' provided optimism and liberalism to some degree to an audience which sorely needed such things to be portrayed sympathetically.
April 20, 2017
Star Trek TOS anthology containing seven season 1 episode stories: Charlie X (Charlie's Law), The Naked Time, Miri, Dagger of the mind, Balance of terror, The Conscience of the king and The man trap (the Unreal McCoy).
James Blish isn't the best Trek writer - his prose is functional at best, clunky at worst, but it's perfectly readable and far from the worst out there - it gets the job done. Characters are all spot on - but then these are episode retellings rather than original stories. In a couple of instances the endings feel a bit rushed and I personally would have liked a bit more fleshing out - but this is mostly to do with the translation from a visual medium to prose - what works perfectly on a screen needs a bit more work to make a good written adventure. This is only a minor niggle - the stories make sense I guess, I just wanted a little more from the book form.
Overall though I really enjoyed this - you get to revisit 7 great classic Trek stories - if you love Star Trek what's not to like?
James Blish isn't the best Trek writer - his prose is functional at best, clunky at worst, but it's perfectly readable and far from the worst out there - it gets the job done. Characters are all spot on - but then these are episode retellings rather than original stories. In a couple of instances the endings feel a bit rushed and I personally would have liked a bit more fleshing out - but this is mostly to do with the translation from a visual medium to prose - what works perfectly on a screen needs a bit more work to make a good written adventure. This is only a minor niggle - the stories make sense I guess, I just wanted a little more from the book form.
Overall though I really enjoyed this - you get to revisit 7 great classic Trek stories - if you love Star Trek what's not to like?
August 26, 2017
Short story adaptions from TOS first season. I had seen all these episodes a million times, so I was interested in how Blish would execute a short story adaption from the original scripts. I was impressed by Blish's ability to capture the zeitgeist of a familiar TOS episode yet make it distinct from how it was shot on camera. I have been listening to the The Greatest Generation podcast of the TNG series and it has sensitized me the production costs of special effects for an underfunded television show and how that translates into adapting the script into film. Of the Star Trek novels I have read this is of course super canonical; the other end of the spectrum would be Spock, Messiah!
January 31, 2011
I don't know if rereading books from one's youth counts as a second childhood, but I'm having one right now ... revisiting a lot of old favorites, including the James Blish Star Trek "novelizations," although Short-Storyizations would be closer to the truth. Each Original Series episode is compacted down to short-story length, and something gets lost in translation. The stories are close to the episodes, but don't match exactly ... dialog changes, situtation changes, character changes. I can tell that Blish wasn't given final shooting scripts to work with, may even have been give only the story treatments? I'm sure some Star Trek fan site explains it all, if I cared enough to look.
I don't need to. I'm just enjoying myself.
I don't need to. I'm just enjoying myself.
April 25, 2019
Ohje, ohje. Ja, es ist schon irgendwie Star Trek, aber Star Trek geschrieben vom einem Achtjährigen für einen Vierjährigen. Die Geschichten sind sehr kurz, schrecklich simpel und naiv formuliert, und haben mit den tatsächlichen TOS-Episoden bestenfalls sehr grob etwas zu tun. Das schlimmste Beispiel ist da „Miri“ - 29 unerträglich qualvolle Seiten, in denen sich keine einzige Figur so verhält, wie man sie kennt. Das zu lesen hat wirklich weh getan.
Mal ganz davon abgesehen, dass das Titelbild mit dem Inhalt präzise überhaupt nichts zu tun hat.
Mal ganz davon abgesehen, dass das Titelbild mit dem Inhalt präzise überhaupt nichts zu tun hat.
May 26, 2022
Ah, yes. Gene Roddenberry's original Star Trek... So many great memories. Which is kinda fun, since I'm not old enough to remember the original run. The one, which ended with the show's infamous cancellation in early 1969 (and yes, quite a lot of legendary franchises, including the original Gundam, debuted with canceled shows). Personally, I've joined somewhere at the point, where the show entered syndication and suddenly became a surprise hit there. Since I'm not from the US, I used to watch it through one of those shady cable services, but still, it was a love from the first sight to me. Which is funny too, since the first episode I ever saw was The Trouble with Tribbles. You know, that cute and funny story that somewhat stands out from the rest of the show. Anyway, you've got the idea. Even though I'm not the oldest trekkie out there, I did join the fun before The Next Generation. Barely. But still, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Bones, Lieutenant Uhura, Mr. Sulu, Scotty, Ensign Chekov, Yeoman Rand... Those names are sacred to me up to this day. So... what's with such a low rating, you may ask? Well... Let me explain.
Ironically, this exact book was the first Star Trek novel I had a chance to read back then and... Let's just say that it turned out to be a huge disappointment. It's not like I didn't know what it is. It says right there, on the cover, that it's a collection of the stories that we've already saw in the original show. In other words, it's a novelization of some TV episodes. And technically, there's nothing wrong with that. Technically. James Blish got the original scripts, James Blish did a quick overhaul and voilà! Here's your book. But. First of all, while something like this was somewhat useful in times before VCR, reading something like this in 80s... Let's just say it felt like a waste of time. I mean, when you read a novelization of the movie / TV show you liked, you expect some juicy details. Something you didn't see in the source material. You want to learn more about how the characters felt, about what they thought while doing things they did... Unfortunately, you won't find anything like that here. For James Blish the entire thing was just a job. And it shows. Not only we didn't get any new details, quite a lot of the details from the original episodes disappeared. For whatever reason. While the original episodes were about 50 minutes long, they were retold in just a few pages here, which made them feel painfully shallow. Reading this book? It feels a lot like reading one of those Wikipedia articles. Blah-blah Kirk, blah-blah Spock, the end. But OK, we can deal with the quick summary.
Unfortunately, here comes our second problem. While Star Trek is known to play games with its own lore now and then, back when these adaptations were written, things were even less strict. Some of the things that are considered very important nowadays, didn't felt that way for James Blish. And as the result, while reading this book nowadays, you'll often be like “Wait, wait, wait, what?!” For example, during the adaptation of the episode called The Man Trap, the phaser is called “a gun”. Just like that. It's a gun now, and when it shoots - it kills. Because, well, that's what the guns do. Again, it wasn't such a big deal back then, but nowadays, with many years of lore and Star Trek's own encyclopedia, it looks ridiculous. Especially since it's not like one or two mistakes we're talking about. The entire thing, while being heavily shortened, is full of such nasty little problems. Which ultimately destroys this book as a quick plot reference. You want this book to serve as a guide or quick reminder of what happened in The Original Series? Let's just say that one of those fan-made wikis will do better job nowadays.
Also, there are changes that looks pretty unreasonable to me. Take that legendary scene from The Naked Time for example. The one, in which Mr. Sulu had a lot of fun with his rapier (and yes, it's one of the most iconic scenes from TOS, your arguments are invalid)? Well, let's just say that the fact that he was forced to wear a shirt during that scene says it all. I mean, George Takei is sure sexy as heck, but seriously? A black T-shirt? Good grief... And since, unlike some of the later books, this one didn't get any comments from Mr. Blish, it can't even offer an explanation for all that. I mean, I know that his take on The City on the Edge of Forever feels strange because of how he tried to combine Harlan Ellison's original work with the final version of a script from the show, while also keeping things short, but the stuff we've got here? It just feels weird with no explanation at all.
So, as the result... Yeah. You guessed it. It's one of those things that just didn't age well and quickly became obsolete. Back in 60s, these adaptations sure felt pretty cool for early trekkies. Having the short adaptations of the favorite episodes on your table? Sounds like a neat idea. But after the VCR time began and it became possible to just record your favorite episodes and re-watch them any time you want? Let's just say there was no reason for something like this anymore. Bantam Books' episode novelizations are pretty much the same exact thing with what you can see in the show, only worse, shorter, more shallow and with heck of a lot of mistakes. Naturally, I can't recommend something like this until you're a die-hard TOS fan and want to read everything there is. One extra star for Star Trek name, but all in all, it's a no from me. Dixi.
Ironically, this exact book was the first Star Trek novel I had a chance to read back then and... Let's just say that it turned out to be a huge disappointment. It's not like I didn't know what it is. It says right there, on the cover, that it's a collection of the stories that we've already saw in the original show. In other words, it's a novelization of some TV episodes. And technically, there's nothing wrong with that. Technically. James Blish got the original scripts, James Blish did a quick overhaul and voilà! Here's your book. But. First of all, while something like this was somewhat useful in times before VCR, reading something like this in 80s... Let's just say it felt like a waste of time. I mean, when you read a novelization of the movie / TV show you liked, you expect some juicy details. Something you didn't see in the source material. You want to learn more about how the characters felt, about what they thought while doing things they did... Unfortunately, you won't find anything like that here. For James Blish the entire thing was just a job. And it shows. Not only we didn't get any new details, quite a lot of the details from the original episodes disappeared. For whatever reason. While the original episodes were about 50 minutes long, they were retold in just a few pages here, which made them feel painfully shallow. Reading this book? It feels a lot like reading one of those Wikipedia articles. Blah-blah Kirk, blah-blah Spock, the end. But OK, we can deal with the quick summary.
Unfortunately, here comes our second problem. While Star Trek is known to play games with its own lore now and then, back when these adaptations were written, things were even less strict. Some of the things that are considered very important nowadays, didn't felt that way for James Blish. And as the result, while reading this book nowadays, you'll often be like “Wait, wait, wait, what?!” For example, during the adaptation of the episode called The Man Trap, the phaser is called “a gun”. Just like that. It's a gun now, and when it shoots - it kills. Because, well, that's what the guns do. Again, it wasn't such a big deal back then, but nowadays, with many years of lore and Star Trek's own encyclopedia, it looks ridiculous. Especially since it's not like one or two mistakes we're talking about. The entire thing, while being heavily shortened, is full of such nasty little problems. Which ultimately destroys this book as a quick plot reference. You want this book to serve as a guide or quick reminder of what happened in The Original Series? Let's just say that one of those fan-made wikis will do better job nowadays.
Also, there are changes that looks pretty unreasonable to me. Take that legendary scene from The Naked Time for example. The one, in which Mr. Sulu had a lot of fun with his rapier (and yes, it's one of the most iconic scenes from TOS, your arguments are invalid)? Well, let's just say that the fact that he was forced to wear a shirt during that scene says it all. I mean, George Takei is sure sexy as heck, but seriously? A black T-shirt? Good grief... And since, unlike some of the later books, this one didn't get any comments from Mr. Blish, it can't even offer an explanation for all that. I mean, I know that his take on The City on the Edge of Forever feels strange because of how he tried to combine Harlan Ellison's original work with the final version of a script from the show, while also keeping things short, but the stuff we've got here? It just feels weird with no explanation at all.
So, as the result... Yeah. You guessed it. It's one of those things that just didn't age well and quickly became obsolete. Back in 60s, these adaptations sure felt pretty cool for early trekkies. Having the short adaptations of the favorite episodes on your table? Sounds like a neat idea. But after the VCR time began and it became possible to just record your favorite episodes and re-watch them any time you want? Let's just say there was no reason for something like this anymore. Bantam Books' episode novelizations are pretty much the same exact thing with what you can see in the show, only worse, shorter, more shallow and with heck of a lot of mistakes. Naturally, I can't recommend something like this until you're a die-hard TOS fan and want to read everything there is. One extra star for Star Trek name, but all in all, it's a no from me. Dixi.
October 2, 2013
When these early novels and stories to Star Trek came out I bought them all, devoured them and loved them. It's been a long time, so today I couldn't even say which of them were really good and which of them I only loved because they were Star Trek. ;)
Just thinking of them and seeing the covers gives me a happy feeling of nostalgia. That alone is worth the rating!
Just thinking of them and seeing the covers gives me a happy feeling of nostalgia. That alone is worth the rating!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 140 reviews