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Star Trek: The Classic Episodes, Vol. 3 - The 25th Anniversary Editions

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In the late 1960s James Blish began writing "The Star Trek Readers," a series of paperbacks in which he adapted the scripts of what was then the late lamented original "Star Trek" series. When first published Blish basically started with what fans voted as the most popular episodes and eventually worked his way through the show's three seasons, although his untimely death forced his widow, Judith Ann Lawrence to finish some of the stories. For the 25th Anniversary editions the adaptations were reorganized so that there were not only three volumes, each representing an entire season. Therefore, "Star Trek: The Classic Episodes, Volume 2" represents the third and final season in 1968-69.

The volume includes a new introduction, "Star Trek in the Real World," by Norman Spinrad and then the third season episodes
are arranged in order of their television appearance: "The Last Gunfight [Spectre of the Gun]," "Elaan of Troyius," "The Paradise Syndrome," "The Enterprise Incident," "And the Children Shall Lead," "Spock's Brain, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?," "The Empath," "The Tholian Web," "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," "Day of the Dove," "Plato?s Stepchildren," "Wink of an Eye," "That Which Survives," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," "Whom Gods Destroy," "The Mark of Gideon," "The Lights of Zetar," "The Cloud Miners," "The Way to Eden," "Requiem for Methuselah," "The Savage Curtain," "All Our Yesterdays," and "Turnabout Intruder."

Blish was a well-known science fiction author, who has won the Hugo Award for his novel "A Case of Conscience," and what he brought to these adaptations was a great ability to flesh out both the characters and the actions. In many ways these adaptations hold up better than the original episodes, where the special effects are less than what an eight-year-old can do on a home computer today. But throughout Blish shows an understanding of both the characters and the Star Trek universe that was being created, which explains why he was also the author of the first "Star Trek" original novel, "Spock Must Die!"

For those of you that love the classic series; this set of books are the written word version of each episode. Why read the written versions? Well, James Blish provides lots of insight as to what is going through the minds of Kirk, Spock and McCoy along with the orginal crew. In the episode the Alterative Factor James Blish provides a better ending than the questionable one on TV. The novels provide a lot more facts on the crew and background details never metioned in the series.

Probably the weakest episodes of the 3 seasons are in this the last season e.g. "Spock's Brain" and yet we get here very well-written stories that although are not exactly the same as the episodes themselves, we get a greater understanding of what's happening because of the greater details. Watch the eps and then read this.