Book Review: Star Trek 2 adapted by James Blish
Once upon a time, Star Trek was not a cultural touchstone. It was, instead, a short-lived television series that was much beloved by a slice of the audience that would form the core of fandom, but with relatively poor ratings and considered soon to be forgotten like so many series before it. But that’s not to say it wasn’t considered a possible source of profit.
Bantam Books acquired the rights to publish tie-in books, starting with a series of short story novelization of various episodes by James Blish. Mr. Blish had a pretty good reputation already, having written the “Cities in Flight” series and a number of books exploring religious concepts in the science fiction genre. But he’d just remarried and moved to another country, so the steady paid work from these adaptations helped a lot.
At the time he wrote this second volume, Mr. Blish still had never seen an actual episode of Star Trek, relying instead on the draft teleplays (scripts) supplied by Desilu. This resulted in the stories often having details that didn’t show up on screen (Lt. Uhura’s job title is “scan engineer”!) but also missing some details that were in the final episodes. This volume has eight episodes represented.
“Arena”: Captain Kirk and a Gorn must battle to see which of their civilizations will be allowed to live. But perhaps the strength and cunning to kill your enemy is not the quality best suited to survival.
“A Taste of Armageddon”: Computer warfare has made two planets locked in a battle that neither can win, but as a result they’ve become complacent.
“Tomorrow Is Yesterday”: The Enterprise finds itself in orbit around the Earth in the Twentieth Century. They’ve picked up a passenger who now knows too much about the future to be allowed to live.
“Errand of Mercy”: The Federation tries to protect a peaceful, primitive planet from a Klingon takeover. Will mercy be shown?
“Court Martial”: Captain Kirk is accused of murder, and the computer shows evidence that this is true! Can good old fashioned lawyering save the day?
“Operation: Annihilate!”: Madness is spreading from planet to planet, leaving extinction in its wake. But how? And will finding the answer kill Spock?
“The City on the Edge of Forever”: Doctor McCoy is lost in the distant past, and seemingly has changed history. Kirk and Spock pursue, but they may need to fail to succeed.
“Space Seed”: A long-lost colony ship is found, many of its cryogenically frozen passengers still revivable. A menace from the Eugenics War is unleashed!
“City” is the best of these, as Mr. Blish was also able to see Harlan Ellison’s first draft and take some elements from that as well. “Space Seed” and “Arena” are also strong.
“Tomorrow” is the weakest of the stories, with its foregone conclusion and dubious use of time travel.
Because these are short story adaptations for the young adult market (part of the “Bantam Pathfinder” line), a lot is cut out, generally anything where Captain Kirk is not personally involved. This can leave other characters feeling shorted, especially outside the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio.
Thanks to the magic of digital storage, it’s now easy for many fans to just watch the original episodes again, so the main value of these older novelizations is the nostalgia factor. You can probably find many of them at garage sales; the most recent reprint seems to have been in 2016 as a Barnes & Noble collection.
Let’s have that classic intro:
