F/SF

I am relieved to see that Uhura's description is now: "Unbelievably beautiful, she is the most popular member of the Enterprise crew and also one of the most brilliant scan engineers around." Better (than in Star Trek 2 and Star Trek 1)!

In the dark times between the end of Star Trek’s initial run and the start of reruns the only way to experience the voyages of the starship Enterprise was through this series of slim paperbacks with short story adaptations of the TV series episodes.

I picked this volume to read as it included an adaptation of ‘Specter of the Gun’ a story I’d written about in the Outside In: Boldly Goes anthology a few years ago.

It’s an eclectic mix of seven stories of which six were from season two and the aforementioned ‘Gun’ from season three. They are presented in a random order which bears no relationship to the broadcast order, but that doesn’t really impact the stories as there was no real sense of continuity in the show at that point.

Blish’s adaptations are brisk in pacing and assume that the reader already knows the characters and the basic premise from the show as there is little characterization or world building. There are a few omissions and slight differences to the broadcast episodes which points to the stories being adapted from early drafts of the shooting scripts.

Overall a fun insight into the early days of the Trek franchise. ( )

I loved this book. Star Trek is one if my favorite shows and I've recently started rewatching it from the beginning. The tribbles are one if my favorite and I'm so glad that that episode was included in this book! The dynamics between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are perfect on and off screen. Finding this slim little used collection of short stories for $2 has been the best part of my summer so far :) ( )

Continuing my 2020 re-watch / re-read, this is the third book finished, but not until the beginning of third season. This was published in April 1969, so written well before the show went off the air. Two stories in particular, both from the end of the second season, are quite different in short story form. "Assignment: Earth", written up in only 12 pages, was quite short-changed. The character of Roberta Lincoln is almost complete omitted and the solution to the rocket is completely different. "Friday's Child" is even more radically different. Using a different name for the planet is minor, and making it explicitly a failed Earth colony doesn't really affect the plot either, but leaving out the Klingon character down on the planet changes several plot points. The landing party never knows that Klingons are involved and have lured the Enterprise away. And, as in books 1 and 2, the focus stays on where Kirk is and the sub-plot of Scotty and the Enterprise is only mentioned in passing at the end. The sub-plot of McCoy getting Eleen to accept her baby is also dropped. Eleen sneaks away, as in the episode, but takes the baby with her to Maab to be killed, thinking she can bargain for her life. She is killed, as is Maab, but he is knifed by one of Akaar's loyal followers instead of sacrificing himself to save the others from the Klingon. The very end is the same, the baby survives to be the next ruler, but instead of Eleen as regent, that position is filled by an unnamed character claiming to be the baby's real father, which makes no sense, since the baby only had a claim as Akaar's son. Guessing that this was written from an early script, the changes made by the time it was filmed were a big improvement.

The one third season episode in this book is "The Last Gunfight", based on "Spectre of the Gun", not the worst 3rd season episode only because "Spock's Brain" is in the same season. What is it about the gunfight at the OK Corral that led both Star Trek and Doctor Who to include truly awful episodes based on it? ( )