Customer Reviews

Star Trek: The New Voyages

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Compiled in 1976, this book predates the appearance of the Star Trek movies as well as nearly all of the novels. When it was published, the only novel to have appeared in print was "Spock Must Die!" by James Blish. Therefore, like the material collected and authored by Blish, this book served as a bridge of new Star Trek material at a time when there was a great desire for it but little content. The episodes of the original series had gone into syndication, serving to keep the flame alive.
The short stories in this book are the further adventures of the main characters of the original series and they are quite good. My favorite was "Visit to A Weird Planet Revisited" which was a bit of a spoof on the Star Trek production process. Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley are acting out a scene involving the transporter when they are actually transported to the Enterprise. They are forced to carry out their roles in a crisis with the Klingons. Their positions are amusing; as they no longer are pretending to do what is actually taking place and every word they utter carries great weight.
My least favorite story is "Mind-sifter", where Kirk is kidnapped by the Klingon General Kor, subjected to their mind-sifter and then taken through the Guardian of Forever back to the 1950's on Earth. His mind is so shattered that he ends up in a low-end mental hospital. The main logical flaw is that if Kor did indeed have access to the Guardian, he could easily have gone back in time and guaranteed Klingon dominance over the galaxy. Secondly, Kirk is gone two years, so Spock is upgraded to the captaincy of the Enterprise. The reaction of the crew, particularly McCoy, is unworthy of Star Fleet personnel. They are insubordinate to Spock and McCoy's behavior occasionally borders on the mutinous.
Nevertheless, this book is still one that all fans of the original series will enjoy. Like money and friends, you can never have too much Star Trek.