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 PROJECTThis 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 LOGMy 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 starsThe 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 starsThe 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 starsThe 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 starsThe 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 ScottIt 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 starsThe 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 starsThe 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 starsThe 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 PERCEPTIONWhile 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.
“Star Trek 1” by James Blish was the first Star Trek novel ever released and is a collection of Original Series scripts adapted into short story form rather than being an original piece of work. The seven stories included in this collection are all from season one and are as follows: Charlie's Law (Charlie X)Dagger of the MindThe Unreal McCoy (The Man Trap)Balance of TerrorThe Naked TimeMiriThe Conscience of the KingReading this collection was an interesting experience for me as I was looking forward to reading the stories and refreshing my memories of the original episodes involved, especially as I felt these most of these were good episodes. To be honest, whilst the book did succeed in reminding me of the stories there were a few issues that affected my overall enjoyment of the collection.For example, my favourite episode in this collection, “Balance of Terror” just feels downright flat and uninspiring. The novelization is badly missing the Romulan Commander’s point of view which really added to the story. In addition I just didn’t like how the entire crew, even Kirk to an extent decided they were going to distrust Spock. Basically my favourite episode on TV turned out to be least favourite in this collection. To be fair to Blish he was constrained by the short story length and he was working with the shooting scripts which at times varied quite a bit from what we finally see on the screen. Therefore I do understand why there would be some issues but readers should still be aware that there are some differences, some of which do weaken the stories. However, it isn’t all bad and there are two stories in particular where I think Blish has actually added some really good elements. The first of these is within “The Unreal McCoy” (AKA The Man Trap) where Kirk knows realises that there is no way his officer would have eaten a strange alien root. In the actual episode everyone just seems to assume the redshirt is an idiot and doesn’t worry about it. The second was “Miri” which has been enhanced by the removal of silly sections like the planet being an “exact duplicate of Earth” and enhanced by some supplemental information on the virus itself. Whilst it could get a little bit dry at times it helped to ensure that things made a bit more sense and it would therefore have been nice for some of this explanation to have made it over into the episode.Overall, this was a competent attempt at capturing the Star Trek episodes at a time when VCRs and DVDs weren’t around. Some of the stories are enhanced and some are weakened by the adaptations but they were all readable in their own way and still highlight the fun of the Star Trek series. On a personal point, one thing this collection did highlight to me is how much the actors themselves really helped develop and enhance both the character interactions and stories.
What do You think about Star Trek 1 (1976)?
The first Star Trek book ever published, written before the show was aired. As a collection of episode adaptations based only on early draft scripts, it was interesting to get a different tweak on episodes I've watched countless times. I liked getting inside the character's heads as only a novel can do. Some specific thoughts on the stories...- The Unreal McCoy (AKA The Man Trap) - I love that Kirk knows there's no way his officer would have eaten a strange alien root. In the episode, they all write off the red shirt as being an idiot and move on. - Balance of Terror - My least favorite adaptation in that, unlike the episode, there is no Romulan POV, which takes much of the drama out of the story. Interesting couple of paragraphs about the chapel though, describing it as non-specific and all-inclusive as possible to accommodate all religious choices on board. Also of interest is that everyone in this story seems to dislike Spock, even Kirk.- Miri - The science in this story is much better than in the episode, and the planet they land on is not an "exact duplicate of Earth" but rather an alien planet settled long ago by Earth colonists. I like this idea much better, especially since the "exact duplicate of Earth" is inexplicably dismissed by the crew in the television version. In the end, it's all just frivolous popcorn, but then what franchise book series isn't? And it's the FIRST of many Star Trek books, so that's something. I think I shall read more.
—Michael Kaiser
I picked up this book because I wanted to get into reading Star Trek novels. I love the series and grew up with reruns of it on the TV. Obviously this book is old. I got my copy from paperbackswap.com and it is old and yellowed and smells just like a little old book from the 70s should smell. The book is basically just the first couple of episodes except worse. It wasn't like reading a book based on the movie these days with a little extra added in, maybe some dips into people's thoughts. No, it was actually missing any emotion the first episodes have. Spock's little break-down in "The Naked Time"? Nothing. I believe it wasn't even in there. The characters are already so thin this early on in the series that this book could have really expanded on them a little more but instead it made them even flatter. All in all, I was extremely disappointed. I suggest you just watch the episodes rather than read this book.
—Jessica
*4 Stars**The Gush*I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this book. I grew up on this series, though I only watched what was on tv on reruns. All of these particular episodes are ones I was previously very familiar with. Surprisingly, that was not needed. These short write ups of the episodes are at once familiar and not. I had read somewhere that these were sometimes written up from early versions of the scripts and that does show. Some of the stories end slightly differently or have whole sections that are not there. Coming at it from a different angle helped further illustrate the idea behind the episode or made we look at it from another viewpoint. Very interesting.Charlie's Law (Charlie X)This may be one of my least favorite episodes, but I did like this short write up. Dr. McCoy has a substantial role in this version, and we get to see inside Charlie's head a bit more. That was helpful; next time I watch the show I'll be taking a closer look at the boy's acting. People seem to catch on to what he's doing sooner (something that bothered me a great deal in the show) and the ending scene between Charlie and Kirk is very good. Janice is shown much better in this as well. All in all, I liked this much better than how the script turned out.Dagger of the MindAhh, one of my favorite episodes of all time. I really liked Kirk in this show, as well as the danger he has to face. The one part I didn't like was the Dr. Noel character...and I still didn't in this. I simply find the whole back story of her and Kirk as unlikely at best. Kirk never goes after staff. In every other episode, Kirk clearly goes after people only when he's sure they don't serve under him. Janice Rand goes after him in several episodes and he never gives her a glance. Not because he can't see her for the uniform but because he won't compromise the chain of command or his position. This is very close to the finished product, the main difference is the reactions between Kirk and Dr. Adams. One wonders how much that steamed from how the two actors worked together. I found the writing to be much less a struggle between machine and a man's will and more a bat hitting while the man curls up and takes it. Episode better.The Unreal McCoy (The Man Trap)This one I've long been ambivalent to. The concept is good, but I just found the execution lacking. Can't really explain why, acting's good and all but just didn't seem to work for me. This write up is almost exactly the episode. The only differences is the lack of interaction between the creature and the crew that fleshed out the middle of the episode and since the story is written from Kirk's perspective, we don't see the final attempt of the creature to drain him. This also illustrates the difference an actor can make to lines of dialogue. The last line that Kirk gives sounds insipid when read, but Shatner did a great job with it in the episode.Balance of TerrorAnother one of my all time favs - mostly because of Mark Leonard's performance. This is a very close write up with one glaring exception. There is no scenes with the Romulan commander. There is no dialogue between two men that in another world might have been friends. I don't know if the change came in the next script change or if it came about because of the quality of acting Leonard could give. Not sure but while this is good, the episode is vastly better.The Naked TimeWhile close, there are some real differences between this and what's on film. The main one being no scenes of Spock and Kirk going through the madness. The second one being there is actually an explanation of what is causing the madness. One that actually makes a fair bit of sense. Why this was left out of the episode...no idea. I actually liked that part of the write up better than the episode. However, not having Spock and Kirk go through it, weakened it. However, they do address something I wondered about. In this, they seal off parts of the ship to try and contain the contagion. I always wondered why they didn't do something so...common sense.MiriWhile the idea was very intriguing, I always felt rather ambivalent towards it. This is good, however, with more passage of time discussed and scenes of the group going further downhill than are shown in the episode. How Kirk handles Miri's stealing of the communicators and her actions is much more in keeping with his characterization in the series than the episode has him act. I never really got that, and this makes so much more sense. The detailed explanations of the hows and whys of the disease they are suffering from are too much for me to understand but I wish some of it had made its way into the episode. I always felt that was a weak point of it.The Conscience of the KingAnother one of my favorites. I think it is for many people. The fine line between justice and revenge is one that has dogged mankind for ages. Mixing a story that is personal to a character with ideas about it from Shakespeare is brilliant - and one that they used again, even with the final TOS movie. This is very close, though the name of the other survivor is different-I like Reilly better. This and the episode other than small changes are virtually identical. A very good episode and a very good write up.*The Rant*There is very little here to complain about. These are very well written versions of the episodes and a great joy to read. *Conclusion*If you love the old episodes, I strongly suggest reading this. They are well written, good little short stories that both remind you of the episodes and are different enough to make you take a new and intriguing look an old friend.
—S. J.
