Customer Reviews

Star Trek 3 (No. 3)

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7 episode summarized, The trouble w/ Tribbles, The Last Gunfight, The Doomsday Machine, Assignment : Earth, Mirror Mirror, Friday's Child & Amok Time. Originally printed in 1969 by Bantam Books.

The set of adaptations of the episodes of the original series by Blish served a fundamental role in the growth of the Star Trek phenomenon. After the original series ended its' three year run, the usual fate would be to be a significant curiosity, but still a curiosity. However, the adaptations helped to feed the flame, being the first books to be published in what has become a major "Enterprise."
The episodes adapted in this volume are:

*) Patterns of Force
*) The Gamesters of Triskelion
*) And the Children Shall Lead
*) The Corbomite Maneuver
*) Shore Leave

As was the case with the others, the authors take some poetic license with the material, altering some of the dialog and scenes to reflect the print medium. As a fan of the show, there are times when I think it diminishes the story and other times when I think it enhances it. This volume is a bit different from the others in that Blish died before it was completed, so some of it was written by J. A. Lawrence (Mrs. James Blish). To me, there was a clear change in the style and in my opinion for the better.
Star Trek fans love all things Trek, and I am one of the originals. I loved these books when they first started coming out in, purchasing them as soon as they appeared on the racks. While they have their flaws, they were a harbinger of the great things that were to come.

The set of adaptations of the episodes of the original series by Blish served a fundamental role in the growth of the Star Trek phenomenon. After the original series ended its' three year run, the usual fate would be to be a significant curiosity, but still a curiosity. However, the adaptations helped to feed the flame, being the first books to be published in what has become a major "Enterprise."
The episodes adapted in this volume are:

*) Patterns of Force
*) The Gamesters of Triskelion
*) And the Children Shall Lead
*) The Corbomite Maneuver
*) Shore Leave

As was the case with the others, the authors take some poetic license with the material, altering some of the dialog and scenes to reflect the print medium. As a fan of the show, there are times when I think it diminishes the story and other times when I think it enhances it. This volume is a bit different from the others in that Blish died before it was completed, so some of it was written by J. A. Lawrence (Mrs. James Blish). To me, there was a clear change in the style and in my opinion for the better.
Star Trek fans love all things Trek, and I am one of the originals. I loved these books when they first started coming out in, purchasing them as soon as they appeared on the racks. While they have their flaws, they were a harbinger of the great things that were to come.

The image shown here is WRONG for this edition of the book. The image must be from a later edition.

First published in 1969, 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.

"The Trouble with Tribbles" (episode 42, season 2, screenplay David Gerrold, who's doomed to be remembered for this one creation, despite his subsequent career.) Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty ("Errand of Mercy"), the dispute between the Federation and the Klingon Empire over Sherman's Planet must be settled by ceding the planet to the party that can make the most effective use of it. As ENTERPRISE deals with an assignment of transferring high-yield grain to Sherman's planet, Lt. Uhura acquires a tribble as a pet from free-lance trader Cyrano Jones, who omits a few crucial details about the little furrball. Nice comedy, as opposed to the-universe-is-at-stake drama.

"The Last Gunfight" (episode 56 "Spectre of the Gun" "The OK Corral", first of season 3, screenplay Gene L. Coon as Lee Cronin). (The use of the Cronin name seems generally to be a bad sign, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" being the exception.) Kirk ignores the Melkotians' first, reasonable request to go away, and beams down to Melkot, whereupon the Melkotians take steps; as the mist clears, the away team finds themselves cast as the losing side of the gunfight at the OK corral. Unsure as to whether real history is at risk - the Melkots might have time travel, after all - the away team is caught between survival and possibly derailing the course of history.

"The Doomsday Machine" (episode 35, season 2, screenplay Norman Spinrad). ENTERPRISE answers a distress call from its sister ship CONSTELLATION, to find it badly damaged with only one survivor: the commanding officer, Commodore Matt Decker, who evacuated his crew to a nearby planet after tangling with a giant planet-killing weapon - only to watch helplessly as it then destroyed the planet. Someone somewhere once created this unstoppable weapon and turned it loose on the universe - and the Rigel colonies will be next if ENTERPRISE and CONSTELLATION can't devise a solution. (Decker's son appears in STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE years later.)

"Assignment: Earth" (episode 55, last of season 2, screenplay Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace) Intended as a pilot for a spinoff series, which I think would have been very interesting. ENTERPRISE has used the 'slingshot' time-travel technique discovered from an earlier episode to travel to 20th-century Earth for historical research, but while there they've intercepted a transporter beam of tremendous range to meet the quite human Gary Seven and his cat, Isis. Gary Seven claims that his alien superiors raise and train human agents to try to steer Earth's history, and that of other developing worlds, out of harm's way - but he can't afford to delay while ENTERPRISE checks his bona fides. See the novel ASSIGNMENT: ETERNITY for more of the characters.

"Mirror, Mirror" (episode 39, season 2, screenplay Jerome Bixby). Beaming up during an ion storm from a failed negotiation with the Halkans, the away team - Kirk, Uhura, Scott, and McCoy - find themselves in an alternate-universe ENTERPRISE, where the Federation is an evil empire in which a Fleet career depends on watching your back. (Quite interesting, actually; I wish they'd done more with this.) Fortunately, Spock looks different enough that they immediately realize something's wrong, and manage to cover themselves long enough to explore their situation.

"Friday's Child" (episode 32, season 2, screenplay Dorothy C. Fontana) (Title comes from a Mother Goose rhyme, although the Friday's child segment seems a non-sequitur here.) Capella IV is to be the scene of one of those sleazy little non-wars the Klingons and the Federation play out around the edges of the Organian Peace Treaty, as the Klingons try to disrupt the ENTERPRISE's treaty negotiations with Teer Akaar. When Akaar is killed in an uprising, the away team interferes with the local custom demanding the death of his pregnant widow Eleen to secure the succession - and as ENTERPRISE itself has been decoyed out of the area, the team must flee cross-country, Eleen in tow. (Blish changes Eleen's ultimate fate, and adds an interesting touch that the original episode couldn't have handled.)

"Amok Time" (episode 34, season 2, screenplay Theodore Sturgeon as Edward Hamilton Waldo). This episode introduces Vulcan marriage customs, which aren't the rather clinical arrangement Kirk privately would have expected, and which Vulcans don't willingly discuss - but Spock hasn't got a choice, when McCoy notices his deteriorating health. (Vulcans normally serve only on all-Vulcan ships; Spock is a very rare exception.) Upon reaching maturity, every adult Vulcan male experiences pon farr every few years - a hormonal state controlled by Vulcan culture through a system of arranged marriages. Spock *must* return to Vulcan to complete the ceremony of marriage-and-challenge with his betrothed, T'Pring - or die. (Diane Duane in the novel SPOCK'S WORLD addressed some of the loose ends of this in a very interesting way.)