Star Trek 4 by James Blish

Star Trek 4 Reviews

• 
  Craig

  This is the fourth volume in which Blish adapted episodes of the original Star Trek series into short story format. He adopted a very straightforward and dry style throughout the book series to present the stories as they were originally presented on screen. He was aided by both his wife and her mother to some uncredited and unclear extent in the later books due to his failing health and the hurried nature of the publishing schedule. One of the stories in this one, The Menagerie, has been significantly changed for the print form, and Blish includes an interesting explanation and notes about it, but the others seem to me to be quite accurately transcribed. The other five stories are All Our Yesterdays, The Devil in the Dark, Journey to Babel, The Enterprise Incident, and A Piece of the Action. They're fun, fast recaps.
• 
  Robert

  James Blish books are like chocolate: I think, I'll have a nibble. Then I have another nibble. Shortly there-after I find that I've consumed the entire bar (or book) and immediately start searching for another. James Blish is particularly good when I'm ill or feeling down; it's easy to read yet thought provoking. If I really don't want to think, then it's usually a rollicking adventure story, too.
  
  I've read nigh-on everything else Blish wrote, leaving the Star Trek books to last because I thought they could not be as good as his independent material. It turns out they aren't, but they are still fun and enjoyable and distinctively Blish who seems to have, Zen-like, mastered Style - No Style in his writing. So this is like slightly cheaper chocolate, Cadbury's milk chocolate, rather than dark Cote D'Or or Lindt. But it's still chocolate...is there any more?
• 
  GoldGato

  The television series of STAR TREK episodes continues with the fourth book of science fiction stories. One doesn’t need to be a fan of the series to understand all the adventures of the good ship Enterprise, but it doesn’t hurt.
  
  Ready to face any danger the solar sphere could thrust at them, they ranged to the outer limits of experience looking for adventure.
  
  ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
  A large star is going to nova soon but there is a planet within its system which might be inhabited. Although the Enterprise’s sensors do not pick up any sign of life, they sense a force so Kirk and crew decide to check it out. Upon beaming down, the officers discover a solitary man who refers to himself as, “The Librarian”. It turns out he is there to send the planet’s inhabitants (now all gone) to whatever portal they decide upon for themselves. The Librarian is a bit too devoted to his job however and sends Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to different eras and environments. Somehow, they must get back to the Library before the planet blows apart.
  
  THE DEVIL IN THE DARK
  The planet Janus harbors a much-needed metal-like plutonium called pergium so the Enterprise swings by for a visit. The colony has never had a problem before but now more than fifty people have vanished and Kirk and company have to figure out what’s happening or the Federation will lose a source of pergium. They quickly surmise that a creature called a Horta has been disrupting everything to save itself and its offspring. Spock will need to do a mind-meld to begin communications between monster and human. This story anticipates the destruction that occurs to the environment and to other creatures when industrialization destroys nature.
  
  JOURNEY TO BABEL
  The Enterprise has been assigned to collect a group of ambassadors for an interplanetary conference. Spock’s parents represent the Vulcan delegation, which means Kirk’s first officer may be too worried about his family to focus on his job. But there is much worse to worry about, for there is a saboteur aboard and Kirk must find the culprit. He may lose his life before order is restored!
  
  THE MENAGERIE
  
  This episode included portions of the show’s original pilot, featuring Jeffrey Hunter as Captain Pike. It was later combined with a new story surrounding Spock’s court-martial and was the only two-parter in the series. The pilot was used for flashbacks and was highly effective in showing Spock’s loyalty. In review, Pike ends up being trapped on a planet where beings with massive heads communicate telepathically. He is tortured as part of a plan by the advanced beings to determine the characteristics of humans. It’s the equivalent of how humans treat animals in a zoo.
  
  THE ENTERPRISE INCIDENT
  Captain Kirk is given sealed orders which he must also hide from his own officers. Worse, it means the Enterprise must disobey interplanetary law and trespass into the Romulan Zone. The Romulans capture Kirk and decide he acted on his own. But it’s Spock who most interests them as they try to get him to turn traitor. The Vulcans and Romulans shared a common ancestor, but the Vulcans chose peace and logic while the Romulans chose violence and gain. This episode serves to show the Federation as the United States, the Klingons as the USSR, and the Romulans as China.
  
  A PIECE OF THE ACTION
  One hundred years before the Enterprise began its journey, another ship, the Horizon, connected with a faraway planet. But the Horizon was lost after contact was made and Kirk and crew must determine what is happening with the current denizens of the planet. It seems the inhabitants are very curious and very imitative, to the point that they have used historical records from the Horizon to learn about the Roaring 1920s in Chicago. It’s Al Capone and gang warfare which the Enterprise officers must curtail to be successful in their mission.
  
  It was interesting reading these as I had forgotten some of these episodes, but the short stories made them alive again. I always feel sorry for the Red Shirts.
  
  Book Season = Year Round (phasers on stun)
  
• 
  Dustin

  The episodes novelized in within include All Our Yesterdays, The Devil in the Dark, Journey To Babel, The Menagerie, The Enterprise Incident, and A Piece of the Action.
  I’m pretty sure that All Our Yesterdays is the first Trek episode Blish has novelized where he keeps the multiple storylines from the episode. Within we follow both Kirk in ye olden not!London and Spock & McCoy in the Ice Age. It breezes through the story while being a solid retelling of the episode.
  The Devil in the Dark actually manages to maintain some of the mystery of the episode it’s based on while still condensing where it can.
  Journey to Babel is is the 2x speed version of the story.
  The Menagerie is actually just The Cage as the author’s forward to the story makes clear that the wraparound would have just been lost pages. I’d tend to agree with him as the novelization of the story manages to retain everything except the crew trying to blast their way into the Talosian base. I applaud Blish for managing to fit a rather dense episode into an extremely limited page count.
  The Enterprise Incident is shortened by mostly following Spock’s role in the story, a fair decision on the author’s part.
  A Piece of the Action is one of my favorite episodes and I’m glad to say the author does a pretty good job of adapting it to the short story format.
  Overall I’d say that this is a marked improvement over the previous three books and at three of five stars is something I’d recommend picking up if you stumble across it in a used book store somewhere.
• 
  Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library)

  This is the same as the previous volumes...in both good and bad ways.
  
  (Some of these episodes I haven't seen, but, one chapter claims to have a never-before-seen ending. At least there's some new material here.)
• 
  Sean O

  This is the book I had as a child. It’s a really good collection and has the original pilot “The Menagerie” in it.
  
  These books might be my favorite way to consume TOS. The plots are boiled down to essentials and they concentrate on Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.
• 
  Octavia Cade

  I zipped through this little book in about an hour and a half. It's very nicely paced, so that helped, containing as it does the novelisations-in-short-story-form of six episodes from the original series of Star Trek. The best of them was, I think, "The Menagerie," the initial pilot episode that was so thoroughly reworked for the show proper. I've seen it several times, so no surprises there, but what was most interesting was how Blish altered the episode slightly, getting rid of the framing device. Most of the episodes in this series are straight retellings with little authorial editing or explanation, but Blish had apparently tried and failed to produce such a retelling, and felt exercised enough by the final product that he left a rather lengthy note explaining what he'd done. I always enjoy reading that sort of thing - being a writer myself I feel a sympathy! - and it's good to see how other writers deal with problems like this when things don't turn out as expected.
• 
  Lance Lumley

  These books are adapted from the TV series, and are short reads. They are around 130 pages, with eight stories (usually), with each tale about 20 pages long.
  "A Piece of the Action" is my favorite from this collection, where Captain Kirk, Spock, and McCoy end up on a planet that is similar to the 1920s gangster era, and Kirk gets in the middle of rival gang war.
  Even if you are not well verse on the Star Trek characters, you can enjoy these short reads.
  For an in depth review, go to:
  https://lancewrites.wordpress.com/201...
• 
  Taaya

  Nicht nur, dass Blish, wie auch bei den anderen Bänden der Reihe, die besten Szenen, jeglichen Humor und alles außer der reinen Action weglässt, hier ist auch noch die Übersetzung schauderhaft. Zur Verteidigung des Übersetzers kann man natürlich anmerken, dass das Buch zu einer Zeit erschien, als Star Trek in Deutschland noch nicht oder gerade erst angelaufen war, er sich also noch nicht auf die später kanonischen Übersetzungen stützen konnte. Das macht es beim Lesen nur leider nicht erträglicher.
• 
  Daniel Taylor

  This volume includes "The Cage" (the first pilot, featuring Captain Christopher Pike), "Journey to Babel" (introducing Spock's parents) and "A Piece of the Action" (Chicago style gangsters and the game of games, fizzbin).
• 
  Marc Chénier

  Of the six episode novelizations the best ones are "All Our Yesterdays" for the humanization of Spock and "A Piece Of The Action" just because it made me smile!
  
  Next Hardcover: "Star Trek 5" by James Blish (1972)
• 
  Erik

  TOS episodes. Done well.
• 
  Ross Vincent

  Once again, I spent #StarTrekDay finishing another Star Trek collection of novelizations of various episodes
• 
  Tonya

  Reading each book of the series right now, stories in no particular order. They're treats for me each day. Funny how I can hear them as I read, too.
• 
  Ed Wyrd

  Another collection of stories adapted by James Blish from the original scripts. This one contains a horta, the first appearance of Spock's parents, Kirk with Vulcan ears, Chicago gangsters, and Captain Pike. Good stuff.
• 
  David King

  “Star Trek 4” by James Blish is his fourth collection of Star Trek Original Series scripts adaptations. There are six adaptations included in this collection with two taken from each of Star Trek’s three seasons as follows:
  
  All Our Yesterdays (Season 3)
  The Devil in the Dark (Season 1)
  Journey to Babel (Season 2)
  The Menagerie (Season 1)
  The Enterprise Incident (Season 3)
  A Piece of the Action (Season 2)
  
  The episodes in this collection are all rather enjoyable and fun, including the two stories taken from season 3 which were probably the best ones available from that season. It probably isn’t as enjoyable as “Star Trek 3” was but considering that book contained four episodes that were nominated for Hugo awards and this one only contained one it shouldn’t be that surprising.
  
  In regards to the writing itself, Blish continues to do a competent job at converting the episodes into short story form although as always there is very little elaboration over what has been shown on TV. In fact, in regards to “The Megangerie”, Blish just removes the entire framing story and sticks with what is basically “The Cage”. He does at least explain why he does it, although as a modern reader used to reading many stories that include multiple viewpoints, different time periods and framing stories I can’t say I agree with his reasoning. Then again, as this was a short story, perhaps it was the right thing to have done.
  
  Overall, this is another competent and enjoyable collection of Star Trek episode adaptations. It is probably only something a Trek fan would enjoy but I do like having the ability just to quickly delve into the stories of The Original Series without having to sit down and watch a full 40 minute episode.
• 
  Jimyanni

  The James Blish "Star Trek" series is a twelve book series of adaptations of the stories from the original "Star Trek" television series. Frankly, Blish didn't do a very good job of it, and most of the series is pretty weak, even for a longtime fan of the series. As far as the writing itself is concerned, this book is better than most of the series; Blish embellishes very little on the basic plots he was given, which to an extent is a good thing; the stories are all pretty well what we saw onscreen. But he takes it to an extreme; there is little description beyond what is absolutely necessary, and little insight into character beyond what is demonstrated by action and dialogue. You know there isn't much meat added to the bare bones of the story when you can read the text version in less time than it takes to watch the episode on tape.The stories in this book are "All Our Yesterdays", "The Devil In The Dark", "Journey to Babel", "The Cage" (although here it's called "The Menagerie"), "The Enterprise Incident", and "A Piece of the Action". 134 pages for 6 stories leaves about 20 pages per story, so yes, there isn't much elaboration to be found in any of them. What there is isn't bad, but there isn't much there. But if you want to read a text version of any of these stories, this is your best option.
• 
  Francisco

  Here we have another one of the 12 volumes adapting the TOS episodes into short-stories. This time we have adaptations of "All Our Yesterdays", "The Devil in the Dark", "Journey to Babel", "The Menagerie", "The Enterprise Incident" and "A Piece of the Action".
  
  As per usual, the adaptations are competent and only as good as the episodes they are adapting, the highlights here are "Journey to Babel" where Spock's relationship with his parents is greatly developed, "The Enterprise Incident" which has great insights into the relationship between Romulans and Vulcans and "The Menagerie". This last one deserves special mention because it isn't an adaptation of "The Menagerie" at all but of the unaired pilot "The Cage" which was later turned into a two-parter with a framing story as "The Menagerie". Blish wisely thought that including the framing story would make the piece too confusing and therefore adapted the screenplay of "The Cage", which at the time of this publishing had never been seen by the wide public being an unaired pilot. This is the type of nugget that makes these adaptations well worth a read, particularly in 1971. Now you can find "The Cage" in all DVD and Blu-Ray box-sets, but at the time reading Blish's adaptation of the original was really the best you could do.
  
  More Reviews at: trekwarsproject.blogspot.com
• 
  Ron

  This collection of six story adaptations of episodes gave me pleasure out of proportion to the small size of the book. Six stories, one of which "The Menagerie" differs quite a bit from the broadcast episode (but probably rings true to the original pilot episode released many years later). Blish explains why he chose to edit out the wraparound story and include the original ending. I've watched a dozen or more of the original episodes on TV the last couple months (kudos to BBC America for really high quality presentations). Many of the episodes reveal the weaknesses of the show - however the story adaptations manage to ring very true and are an honorable testament to the original series. I was glad to have read these and will read more.
  
  included was:
  ix • Preface
  1 • All Our Yesterdays
  23 • The Devil in the Dark
  45 • Journey to Babel
  69 • The Menagerie
  95 • The Enterprise Incident
  117 • A Piece of the Action
• 
  Patrick McWilliams

  Another great little collection of TOS episode novelizations with some interesting differences. I liked how, in Blish's version of "The Menagerie," Pike has zero hesitation about women on the bridge, only an internal reservation about Yeoman Colt's lack of experience.
  
  Of particular interest to me was that in "A Piece of the Action," Kirk and Spock both found a consolidated centralization of power on the "gangster planet" of Dana Iotia Two to be far more preferable than the decentralized warring gangs. Kirk expected the new "government" -- literal gangsters who extorted the populace -- to now be better equipped to provide services to citizens.
  
  I'd expect that the rival gangs would provide a check on each other's power. Now the State's power to control the populace is virtually limitless. At least, it would be if the Federation weren't going to be constantly hovering over their shoulder. On the other hand, a Federation captain thought it was a good idea in the first place!
• 
  Yaaresse

  When i was a kid, my older sister's friend GAVE me the entire collection. (I know!) Over the next few years, I read them all in order, starting the first one the day after I finished the last one. Loved them. I'm not sad that I didn't hang onto them and can only hope they still exist to make some other fan happy. (But I doubt it because...well, paperbacks, you know?)
  
  The adaptations got better in the later volumes, but it was Star Trek whenever and wherever I wanted with having to put up with the spastic tripe William Shatner calls acting.
  
  Frankly, I can't remember which story was in which volume, so my rating reflects my enjoyment of the set...which I am hoping will come out in e-book form very soon.
• 
  Seth Kenlon

  Found these books in a stash of old sci fi that belonged to my grandfather. At first I didn't understand why they were ever written, and then I was watching a Dr. Who documentary that explained that before TV even imagined the concept of re-runs, people had one way of re-experiencing the episodes of their favourite sci fi episodes: novelizations! And that's what this is, it's a few episodes, more or less transcribed, with just a few differences here and there which keeps things interesting.
• 
  Charles

  These are Blish's novelizations/storyizations of the original Star Trek episodes. Sometimes they are slightly different from the final episode since they were written from shooting scripts as I understand. Although I enjoyed them, it's because of the tie in with the TV series episodes. The writing here is fairly workmanlike and this is really bare bones kind of work.
• 
  Fangirl

  When these early novels and stories to Star Trek came out I bought them all, devoured them and loved them. It's been a long time, so today I couldn't even say which of them were really good and which of them I only loved because they were Star Trek. ;)
  Just thinking of them and seeing the covers gives me a happy feeling of nostalgia. That alone is worth the rating!