Customer Reviews

Star Trek 11 (11)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The James Blish "Star Trek" series is a twelve book series of adaptations of the stories from the original "Star Trek" television series. Frankly, Blish didn't do a very good job of it, and most of the series is pretty weak, even for a longtime fan of the series. But this volume is better than most; it has some of the better episodes, and also the writing itself seems a bit better; perhaps by this volume, Blish was finally getting a handle on the characters.

The first of six episodes adapted in this book is "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", which is far and away the weakest story of the lot (Kirk and Nurse Chapel beam down to a planet to meet her fiance, previously missing for five years and presumed dead, to find that his memories live on in an android which only THINKS it has emotions).

Next is "The Squire Of Gothos", one of the all-time classic stories from the series, in which the Enterprise crew encounter Squire Trelane, the prototype for the character "Q" from the "Next Generation" series.

Then comes "Wink Of An Eye", a story which requires more than the usual amount of suspension of disbelief, in that the crew is threatened by a race which moves at many times the human rate, so fast that they cannot even be seen by the naked eye, and sound like the buzzing of insects. If you can swallow enough disbelief to accept the basic premise, and the inconsistencies and illogicalities required to make that basic plot point work, it's actually a pretty good story. But I've never been able to manage that trick. I mean, the opposition moves so quickly they can't be seen, but yet the Enterprise people accomplish a great deal before they've finished what they're doing; it's almost as if they only move at that speed when somebody's looking, and only at normal speed otherwise. Further, they beamed aboard by "piggybacking" when the landing party returned to the ship, invisibly joining in the beamup. Yet, for one thing, Scotty (or whoever was at the controls) should by rights have noticed that there was more mass being beamed aboard than expected, for another, no matter how fast they were CAPABLE of moving, they would have needed to stand still for the duration of the beamup process, which would have left them visible, and they would have needed to be standing so close to the crew they were beaming up with that they should have been felt, even if they couldn't be seen.

Fourth is "Bread And Circuses", in which the Enterprise encounters a parallel earth, in which Rome never fell, and so the planet has developed to the point equivalent in technology to that of the mid twentieth century on Earth, but with a culture and political situation of what Rome would have become.

Fifth is "Day Of The Dove", in which the Enterprise crew and the survivors of a Klingon ship must resist their natural antipathy for one another, in spite of the prodding of an energy being who feeds on the violent emotions.

And last is "Plato's Stepchildren", in which they encounter a planet inhabited by three dozen highly powerful telepathic telekinetics, all with as much concern for the feelings of "lesser mortals" as one might expect.

If you enjoy "Star Trek", even if you aren't a serious collector of "Star Trek" books, this one is worth reading. The best of a mediocre series.

When I read these adaptations of the episodes of the original Star Trek series, I must take a virtual chill-pill before I begin. As an original trekkie, I know a great deal of the dialog by heart, so when Blish has the characters say something that does not precisely match the original dialog, I catch it. Also, as Blish acknowledges, he does not always follow the plot of the episode precisely. Sometimes I consider this a good thing and at other times it comes across as a point of decline.
The episodes adapted in this book are:

*) What Are Little Girls Made of?
*) The Squire of Gothos
*) Wink Of an Eye
*) Bread and Circuses
*) Day of the Dove
*) Plato's Stepchildren

In this case, my response to the adaptations largely mirrors my opinion of the original episodes. I consider "Wink of an Eye" and "Plato's Stepchildren" to be two of the worst episodes in the series, "The Squire of Gothos" as one of the best and the rest somewhere in the middle. I very much enjoyed what Blish did with "The Squire of Gothos" and struggled through "Wink of an Eye" and "Plato's Stepchildren." I don't blame Blish for this; the original stories were just too weak.
Despite all of their faults, the set of books by Blish containing adaptations of the episodes of the original series filled a very valuable role. Having been published shortly after the original series was cancelled; they kept the Trek flame alive, helping nurture it into the "Enterprise" that it has become.

When I read these adaptations of the episodes of the original Star Trek series, I must take a virtual chill-pill before I begin. As an original trekkie, I know a great deal of the dialog by heart, so when Blish has the characters say something that does not precisely match the original dialog, I catch it. Also, as Blish acknowledges, he does not always follow the plot of the episode precisely. Sometimes I consider this a good thing and at other times it comes across as a point of decline.
The episodes adapted in this book are:

*) What Are Little Girls Made of?
*) The Squire of Gothos
*) Wink Of an Eye
*) Bread and Circuses
*) Day of the Dove
*) Plato's Stepchildren

In this case, my response to the adaptations largely mirrors my opinion of the original episodes. I consider "Wink of an Eye" and "Plato's Stepchildren" to be two of the worst episodes in the series, "The Squire of Gothos" as one of the best and the rest somewhere in the middle. I very much enjoyed what Blish did with "The Squire of Gothos" and struggled through "Wink of an Eye" and "Plato's Stepchildren." I don't blame Blish for this; the original stories were just too weak.
Despite all of their faults, the set of books by Blish containing adaptations of the episodes of the original series filled a very valuable role. Having been published shortly after the original series was cancelled; they kept the Trek flame alive, helping nurture it into the "Enterprise" that it has become.

First published in 1975, these short stories are Blish's adaptations of the screenplays of various episodes from the original series. The episodes aren't sorted into books according to either chronological order or identity of screenwriter.

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" (episode 10, season 1, screenplay by horror-writer Robert Bloch). The first episode really featuring Christine Chapel, as the ENTERPRISE has arrived at Exo III to check up on Dr. Roger Korby, Christine's fiance, who's been missing and presumed dead somewhere on the planet for 5 years. ENTERPRISE's crew is surprised to easily establish contact with Korby's archaeological expedition on arrival, and Chapel and Kirk beam down to check it out. The dead civilization had some amazing robotics technology, and Korby's exploration of that technology has some disturbing consequences. (Chapel's backstory as shown in this episode goes a long way toward explaining her later attachment to Spock, someone 'safe'.)

"The Squire of Gothos" (episode 18, season 1, screenplay Paul Schneider) is a Q-like alien who's fascinated by Earth, but his information is centuries out of date, and he only knows the appearance rather than the reality of things: 18th century costume, food without taste, fire without heat. He treats ENTERPRISE's crew as a collection of live toys, and moves his planet back into their path whenever they attempt to leave. (One Star Trek: TNG novel actually put Trelane together with Q, as poetic justice on poor Q.)

"Wink of an Eye" (episode 68, season 3, screenplay Arthur Heinemann and Gene L. Coon (as Lee Cronin, a bad sign)) An aliens-need-human-mates scenario, naturally involving Kirk being seduced by a beautiful woman. The catch is that the sterility of the Scalosian males was a side effect of a condition that accelerated their perception of time, so that they move too quickly to interact with humans unless the humans are likewise accelerated; Kirk must find a solution to the problem that defeated the Scalosians. Some serious plot holes in the source episode, not least of which is the Scalosians' ultimate fate.

"Bread and Circuses" (episode 43, season 2, screenplay Gene Roddenberry and Gene L. Coon). Serious flaw in the source episode: alternate history is all very well, but not when claiming that an alien culture in the same universe just happened to evolve in parallel - in this case, a Roman Empire that lasted to develop 20th century technology but kept most of the external trappings, such as televised public games. ENTERPRISE stumbles across the planet while tracing the lost ship BEAGLE - to find that her captain, a classmate of Kirk's, opted to set himself up as emperor here, killing all his crewmembers who resisted, and takes the away team prisoner to avoid being hauled home and court-martialed.

"Day of the Dove" (episode 66, season 3, screenplay Jerome Bixby). Opens with a series of bizarre incidents: distress signals from a non-existent human colony reporting attack, and a Klingon ship suffering a mysterious series of explosions, whose commander claims the ENTERPRISE attacked him without provocation. At least one side is being manipulated into a confrontation, but why? Very unusual episode, in which the Klingons are people, and sympathetic characters, rather than stage-prop villains. Commander Kang even has a mixed-gender crew, and is accompanied by his wife, Mara, the first female Klingon we've ever met.

"Plato's Stepchildren" (episode 67, season 3, screenplay Meyer Dolinsky) are a group of humanlike aliens who call themselves Platonians, having admired the human philosopher Plato in the long-ago days when they visited Earth. They have very strong psionic powers, and are used to forcing any weaker than themselves to do as they wish - such as Alexander, a dwarf born among them without powers of his own, who has suffered cruelly for their entertainment. After seeking medical help for a man with an injured leg, one of the things they want is to retain McCoy's services permanently, quite apart from wanting new lives toys to play with...