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Star Trek Log Two (Star Trek Logs)

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Once upon a time, after the original live-action TV series but long before Star Trek: TNG, the original crew had a series of adventures as a Saturday morning cartoon. It's a pity they haven't received more credit for this; animation freed them from the financial realities of special effects that made so many of Enterprise's crew members human and its encounters with aliens rather tame, and the writers took advantage of this.

While the live action series episodes were translated into book form by James Blish (Star Trek 1, 2, 3, etc.) the animated series episodes are distinguished as Star Trek *Log* volumes, and were all written by Foster, who gives proper credit to the writer(s) of each original screenplay.

Unfortunately, Foster's writing talents have been set to making bricks without straw here; the source material for this particular volume is weak.

"The Survivor" - Carter Winston, a famous philanthropist presumed dead for 5 years, has miraculously turned up alive in a derelict spacecraft, and his fiancee just happens to be a member of the Enterprise crew. Spock, as it happens, is the only officer level-headed enough to ask for ID. (Riiiiiiiight.) As it happens, all the fingerprints and retinal scans match properly. Then Winston pulls some completely inexplicable stunts (even knowing the whole story, it doesn't all make sense)...

The best part of this book is the Christmas party aboard ship at the opening of this story. Spock, of course, doesn't drink, and views Christmas as an annual madness. "But by Vulcan's long deserts, it was hard on him."

"The Lorelei Signal" - Some recently pooled information revealed that once every 27.34 years for the century and a half, a Romulan, Klingon, or Federation starship has vanished in the sparsely mapped Cicada sector, and now that another disappearance is due, the Vice Admiral for Science has diverted Enterprise into the Cicada sector to sweep it with sensors for a few days. After entering the suspect zone, Enterprise picks up a signal that has a hypnotic effect on the male, but not the female, members of the crew. (Yes, this is the 1 episode where Lt. Uhura took command, and it's a shame it was wasted on this episode.) The crew fell into a trap they should have been able to avoid if they're as good as they're supposed to be. Their captors, who have problems of their own, also have a situation they should have coped with more intelligently.

There *is* a mildly innovative use of the transporter in this one, but (as usual) it was conveniently forgotten in future stories rather than incorporating the consequences into the fabric of the Star Trek universe.

"The Infinite Vulcan" - Just as Data in TNG seems to go berserk in at least 1 episode in 3, Spock was a favorite target in the old series (e.g. "Spock's Brain"). Here the highest-ranking officers on the ship, as usual, are personally conducting the ground survey of a new planet, where cities and obvious signs of technology abound, but only plant life can be detected. If these are the best the Federation has to offer, the Feds are in serious trouble: they don't take proper precautions, they do make silly assumptions about what the aliens might be like, and only really tolerant aliens would so calmly accept the Enterprise's rather rude and hostile reactions on first contact. As it turns out, it really isn't first contact - a refugee from the Eugenics Wars of Earth discovered the planet centuries ago, bringing with him both a knowledge of human language, plague - and something that turns out to be really dangerous for Spock in particular.

First. I haven't seen any episodes of the animated series, so I treated this book as a short-story collection. The stories were predictable and weren't that intelligent either. Might have worked better as a cartoon.

Star Trek Log Two contains three episodes from the cartoon TV series. "The Survivor," "The Lorelei Signal," and "The Infinite Vulcan." This book is a must have for fans of Star Trek.

Another set of three adventures from the animated series. As in Star Trek: Log One, the episodes are of pretty poor quality, but the author makes the best of the material (this time without the many typographical errors that plagued the first installment). Still manages to be somewhat enjoyable and if you're a fan of the original series and haven't seen the cartoon.

The episodes included herein are:
"The Survivor"
"The Lorelei Signal"
"The Infinite Vulcan"