Star Trek 1: 1 [Paperback]

James Blish (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Corgi (April 19, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0552090808
• ISBN-13: 978-0552090803
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,270,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Adaptations of some of the first episodes of the original series. Some deviations from the plot are a step backwards, August 1, 2007

By 

Charles Ashbacher (Marion, Iowa United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Star Trek 1 (Mass Market Paperback)

This book contains some of the first adaptations of episodes in the original Star Trek series written by James Blish. Published in 1967, the mindset of the sixties regarding what is acceptable is still very apparent. As is the case in all of the other adaptations done by Blish, he does not stick precisely to the plot of the episode. In most cases, it is a debatable point as to whether the changes are an improvement.
The episodes adapted in this book are:

*) Charlie X
*) Dagger of the mind
*) The man trap
*) Balance of terror
*) The naked time
*) Miri
*) The conscience of the king

The adaptations of episodes in the original series served a very important role in the transformation of Star Trek from a television show with a science fiction format into a massive cultural movement. They were the first Star Trek books to appear, and helped prove that there was a market for such books. However, as a Star Trek purist, I often find the changes from the original episode to be a deficiency.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The First of 12 Star Trek Adaptation Books by James Blish, August 10, 2006

By 

Lonnie E. Holder "The Review's the Thing" (Columbus, Indiana, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Star Trek 1 (Hardcover)

James Blish began adapting the stories of the original Star Trek television show in 1967. The first paperback book was titled "Star Trek," and has been retitled "Star Trek 1" in this hardback reissue. This handsome hardback book contains seven stories from the first season of the television show.

The first story is "Charlie's Law," which was the second episode of the first season. Charlie was rescued from the planet Thasus after being marooned there for 14 years, the sole survivor of a crash. The crew of the rescuing ship, the Antares, remarked that Charlie was sweet and remarkably intelligent. However, Charlie is more; much more. Soon the crew of the Enterprise is fighting for their survival as Charlie reveals the true extent of his abilities.

The second story is "Dagger of the Mind," which was the ninth episode of the first season. The Enterprise visits a penal planet where Dr. Simon Van Gelder sneaks aboard ship. Dr. Tristan Adams asks whether Dr. Van Gelder has gone aboard the Enterprise, and warns Captain Kirk that Van Gelder has mental problems. However, things are not as they seem and Captain Kirk soon finds that undocumented activities are taking place at the penal colony; activities that could cause Kirk's death!

The third story is "The Unreal McCoy," which was the television episode titled "The Man Trap," the first televised episode of Star Trek, 8 September 1966. The Enterprise has stopped at planet Regulus VIII for a routine medical checkup of Dr. and Nancy Bierce (called Crater in the television show). Soon crewmen begin dying, and suspicions slowly arise, complicated by a relationship between Nancy Bierce and Dr. McCoy.

The fourth story is "The Balance of Terror," which was the fourteenth televised episode of the first season. The Enterprise is there when a Romulan ship breaks through the neutral zone with new weapons and a cloaking device. Captain Kirk reenacts "The Enemy Below" (except for the part where Robert Mitchum rams the German submarine) as the Enterprise plays cat and mouse with the invisible Romulan ship. The Enterprise will sustain casualties!

The fifth story is "The Naked Time," the fourth televised episode of the first season. When the Enterprise travels to an unnamed planet to retrieve a science team, they discover the scientists are all dead. Mr. Spock obtains a sample of a liquid that appears to be water, but very strange water in that it is liquid in sub-zero temperatures. The crew of the Enterprise soon begins acting strangely, and the mayhem begins.

The sixth story is "Miri," which is one of my favorite Star Trek episodes and which was the eighth televised episode in the first season. The Enterprise visits a planet where the sole inhabitants are children, but the children may be 300 years old. Soon the crewmembers that beamed down to the planet are aging rapidly and begin acquiring homicidal tendencies. Can Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock find an antidote to the strange disease before Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the others succumb to its effects?

The final story in this volume is "The Conscience of the King," the thirteenth televised episode of the first season. The Enterprise has been illegally diverted to Arcturus because a friend of Captain Kirk believes he has seen the mass murderer Kodos the Executioner in a Shakespearean troupe. Initially Kirk is skeptical, but further investigation reveals that witnesses to the murders of Kodos have been dying when the Shakespearean troupe visit. Is Karidian Kodos, and who is killing off the witnesses? Since Kirk is one of the witnesses, is he next?

James Blish did a marvelous job of adapting the television episodes. Sometimes Blish made modifications to the story to make it work better for a written short story, but Blish kept the intent of the story as faithful to the television series as possible.

Fans of the original Star Trek television series have several options to obtain the written stories of the original television series, but this particular option is one of the most beautiful. Enjoy!

Note: All the information regarding episode numbers was derived from the web site imdb.com.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 7 stories adapted from season 1 of the original series, May 17, 2003

By 

Michele L. Worley (Kingdom of the Mouse, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek 1 (Paperback)

First published in 1967, these short stories are Blish's adaptations of the screenplays of various episodes from the original series' first season. The episodes aren't sorted into books according to either chronological order or identity of screenwriter.

Note: If you're interested in adaptations based on the animated STAR TREK series, see Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log books.

"Charlie's Law" (episode 8 "Charlie X", season 1, screenplay Dorothy C. Fontana, from a story by Gene Roddenberry). Young Charlie Evans, now a teenager, has only recently been rescued from the unexplored planet Thasus, where he was stranded at age 3 as the sole survivor of a crash landing; ENTERPRISE is picking him up from the cargo ship ANTARES. Spock's natural question - how did such a young child survive? - seems urgently in need of an answer as Charlie, caught in a normal youngster's emotional turmoil together with complete ignorance of ordinary human interaction, grows increasingly frustrated - and mysterious accidents happen to the objects of that frustration.

"Dagger of the Mind" (episode 11, season 1, screenplay S. Bar-David) (Title is from a line in MACBETH, the hallucinatory scene just before the first murder.) Tantalus V is a penal colony - not to be confused with the insane asylum of "Whom the Gods Destroy". After the former director, Dr. Van Gelder, turns up as a stowaway after a routine visit, ENTERPRISE returns to Tantalus V to find out just what the failed experiment was that affected Van Gelder's sanity. Like "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", the preceding episode, notable in that Kirk beams down with a female crewmember, Dr. Noel, rather than the Spock/McCoy combination that became so common; Spock is back aboard ship handling other aspects of the problem.

"The Unreal McCoy" (episode 6 "The Man Trap", season 1, screenplay George Clayton Johnson). ENTERPRISE has arrived at planet M113 for routine medical checkups of archaeologists Nancy and Robert Crater - not knowing that they're evading the examinations because Nancy isn't really Nancy, but the last survivor of an alien race gifted at illusion, and Crater would rather pretend she's real than completely lose even the illusion of his late wife. Trouble is, the alien lacks self-control, can be deadly - and can pass for just about anyone.

"Balance of Terror" (episode 9, season 1, screenplay Paul Schneider) First story featuring the Romulans, the Romulan Neutral Zone, and their cloaking technology that formed the linchpin of a later episode. Until this incident, no Federation representative had ever had visual contact with a Romulan, so their relationship with Vulcans was unknown (Mark Lenard, who played the Romulan Commander, was later cast as Sarek, Spock's father). The Romulans receive a very sympathetic portrayal here, being treated as people rather than stage props, with their own dignity and honor; when they pull a very clever trick to try to escape, our sympathies may lie with them rather than the Enterprise.

"The Naked Time" (episode 7, season 1, screenplay John D.F. Black). This episode was somewhat contrived as a character-development device; a contagious illness picked up on the dying planet Psi 2000 has the effect of removing inhibitions - a bad time for it, as the ENTERPRISE only has a narrow window to escape from the planet, only having come there to rescue a now-dead research team. Ensign Riley, whose drunken takeover of the engine room and subsequent endless singing over the intercom system is memorable, is also a major character in "Conscience of the King", below.

"Miri" (episode 12, season 1, screenplay Adrian Spies). Tracking an old radio-signal distress call across light-years to its source, ENTERPRISE finds a planet that appears to be a duplicate of Earth, where all the inhabitants seem to be children. (Miri, the first 'child' they meet, is on the edge of adolescence, and develops a crush on Kirk - while she's willing to help, she's also jealous.) McCoy digs up laboratory records on planet revealing that longevity experiments had some nasty side effects, turning an intended blessing into a plague: while physical childhood now lasts centuries, the onset of puberty brings rapid aging and death - not only has the landing party has now been exposed, but Miri is entering the danger zone.

"The Conscience of the King" (episode 13, season 1, screenplay Barry Trivers) (Title is taken from HAMLET, 'The play's the thing wherein we'll catch the conscience of the king.') Visiting an old friend, Thomas Leighton, on Planet Q, the two attend a theatrical performance - and Tom reveals his belief that Anton Karidian, the head of the touring company, is actually Kodos the Executioner, guilty of a massacre twenty years ago which Tom and Kirk survived, although it cost Tom most of his face. (Kirk isn't positive about the ID - it's been twenty years, after all.) After talking with Tom, Kirk chats up Karidian's daughter - and together they find Tom's murdered body.

After that, Kirk pulls strings to ensure that the Karidian company is stranded on Planet Q, so that ENTERPRISE can offer them transportation without arousing suspicion - transferring Ensign Riley, who also survived the massacre as a child, to engineering to get him out of harm's way. Kirk doesn't confide in Spock, at first - but Spock, becoming suspicious, finds the missing link on his own, together with the disturbing fact that of the handful of survivors who could identify Kodos, most have died suspiciously while the Karidian company was nearby.