F/SF

All of these are quick reads and they are a great way to reminisce about classic Star Trek. ( )

Includes "Turnabout Intruder." Yikes. But they've improved the jacket copy!

I finished it - re-watched and re-read all of ST:TOS, in order, to close out 2020. Star Trek 5 has the misfortune to contain the final aired episode, the awful "Turnabout Intruder", so is the last book to finish. Both 5 and 6 contained mostly 3rd season episodes. Still counts as an early volume, with the problem of dropping any scenes not in Kirk's POV, most obvious in "Whom God's Destroy" where the Scotty/Enterprise side of the password exchange was omitted. A lot of this episode's violence was scaled down, dropping the torture of Kirk and the killing of Marta (who was strangely described as part Vulcan because she was green, when she was clearly Orion in the episode). Not yet scaled up to 30 pages per story, these are only 20-25 pages each. "The Way to Eden" is especially short, missing important scenes like the takeover of Auxiliary Control, that contain no central characters. The songs were tacky even in 1969, but at least there was music. Presented as just lyrics doesn't help them.

And a particularly 2020 note on "Requiem for Methuselah" - Oh joy, another story about a plague, I'd forgotten that detail. ( )

After reading three volumes of this series I can say that certain themes recur; illusion, transporter problems, Kirk fancying a native... ( )