Star Trek 3

Rating:
Summary: Star Trek 3 - The series finest encapsulated
Review: 7 episode summarized, The trouble w/ Tribbles, The Last Gunfight, The Doomsday Machine, Assignment : Earth, Mirror Mirror, Friday's Child & Amok Time. Originally printed in 1969 by Bantam Books.

Rating:
Summary: Star Trek 3 - The series finest encapsulated
Review: 7 episode summarized, The trouble w/ Tribbles, The Last Gunfight, The Doomsday Machine, Assignment : Earth, Mirror Mirror, Friday's Child & Amok Time. Originally printed in 1969 by Bantam Books.

Rating:
Summary: 7 stories: six from season 2, one from season 3
Review: First published in 1969, these short stories are Blish's adaptations of the screenplays of various episodes from the original series. The episodes aren't sorted into books according to either chronological order or identity of screenwriter.

"The Trouble with Tribbles" (episode 42, season 2, screenplay David Gerrold, who's doomed to be remembered for this one creation, despite his subsequent career.) Under the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty ("Errand of Mercy"), the dispute between the Federation and the Klingon Empire over Sherman's Planet must be settled by ceding the planet to the party that can make the most effective use of it. As _Enterprise_ deals with an assignment of transferring high-yield grain to Sherman's planet, Lt. Uhura acquires a tribble as a pet from free-lance trader Cyrano Jones, who omits a few crucial details about the little furrball. Nice comedy, as opposed to the-universe-is-at-stake drama.

"The Last Gunfight" (episode 56 "Spectre of the Gun" "The OK Corral", first of season 3, screenplay Gene L. Coon as Lee Cronin). (The use of the Cronin name seems generally to be a bad sign, "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" being the exception.) Kirk ignores the Melkotians' first, reasonable request to go away, and beams down to Melkot, whereupon the Melkotians take steps; as the mist clears, the away team finds themselves cast as the losing side of the gunfight at the OK corral. Unsure as to whether real history is at risk - the Melkots might have time travel, after all - the away team is caught between survival and possibly derailing the course of history.

"The Doomsday Machine" (episode 35, season 2, screenplay Norman Spinrad). _Enterprise_ answers a distress call from its sister ship _Constellation_, to find it badly damaged with only one survivor: the commanding officer, Commodore Matt Decker, who evacuated his crew to a nearby planet after tangling with a giant planet-killing weapon - only to watch helplessly as it then destroyed the planet. Someone somewhere once created this unstoppable weapon and turned it loose on the universe - and the Rigel colonies will be next if _Enterprise_ and _Constellation_ can't devise a solution. (Decker's son appears in _Star Trek: The Motion Picture_ years later.)

"Assignment: Earth" (episode 55, last of season 2, screenplay Gene Roddenberry and Art Wallace) Intended as a pilot for a spinoff series, which I think would have been very interesting. _Enterprise_ has used the 'slingshot' time-travel technique discovered from an earlier episode to travel to 20th-century Earth for historical research, but while there they've intercepted a transporter beam of tremendous range to meet the quite human Gary Seven and his cat, Isis. Gary Seven claims that his alien superiors raise and train human agents to try to steer Earth's history, and that of other developing worlds, out of harm's way - but he can't afford to delay while _Enterprise_ checks his bona fides. See the novel _Assignment: Eternity_ for more of the characters.

"Mirror, Mirror" (episode 39, season 2, screenplay Jerome Bixby). Beaming up during an ion storm from a failed negotiation with the Halkans, the away team - Kirk, Uhura, Scott, and McCoy - find themselves in an alternate-universe _Enterprise_, where the Federation is an evil empire in which a Fleet career depends on watching your back. (Quite interesting, actually; I wish they'd done more with this.) Fortunately, Spock looks different enough that they immediately realize something's wrong, and manage to cover themselves long enough to explore their situation.

"Friday's Child" (episode 32, season 2, screenplay Dorothy C. Fontana) (Title comes from a Mother Goose rhyme, although the Friday's child segment seems a non-sequitur here.) Capella IV is to be the scene of one of those sleazy little non-wars the Klingons and the Federation play out around the edges of the Organian Peace Treaty, as the Klingons try to disrupt the _Enterprise_'s treaty negotiations with Teer Akaar. When Akaar is killed in an uprising, the away team interferes with the local custom demanding the death of his pregnant widow Eleen to secure the succession - and as _Enterprise_ itself has been decoyed out of the area, the team must flee cross-country, Eleen in tow. (Blish changes Eleen's ultimate fate, and adds an interesting touch that the original episode couldn't have handled.)

"Amok Time" (episode 34, season 2, screenplay Theodore Sturgeon as Edward Hamilton Waldo). This episode introduces Vulcan marriage customs, which aren't the rather clinical arrangement Kirk privately would have expected, and which Vulcans don't willingly discuss - but Spock hasn't got a choice, when McCoy notices his deteriorating health. (Vulcans normally serve only on all-Vulcan ships; Spock is a very rare exception.) Upon reaching maturity, every adult Vulcan male experiences pon farr every few years - a hormonal state controlled by Vulcan culture through a system of arranged marriages. Spock *must* return to Vulcan to complete the ceremony of marriage-and-challenge with his betrothed, T'Pring - or die. (Diane Duane in the novel _Spock's World_ addressed some of the loose ends of this in a very interesting way.)

Rating:
Summary: James Blish retells several classic Star Trek episodes
Review: James Blish was a science fiction writer who wrote over 27 novels, including "A Case of Conscience" for which he won a Hugo Award and one of the earliest Star Trek novels "Spock Must Die!" He also adapted the original Star Trek novels for a series of Star Trek Readers in the late 1960's and proved himself to be as good at novelization as anybody I have ever come across. The details he puts into the stories, without adding anything new to the actual tale, are amazing. Just read the beginning of his version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" where he talks about how the "harmless" little creatures. This volume also includes the novelizations of "The Last Gunfight," "The Doomsday Machine," "Assignment: Earth," "Mirror, Mirror," "Friday's Child" and "Amok Time." So with Tribbles, Mirror and Amok you have three classic Star Trek episodes that are on most people's list of Top 10 episodes. Now we just have to get these books reprinted again for the next generation of Trekkers.

Rating:
Summary: James Blish retells several classic Star Trek episodes
Review: James Blish was a science fiction writer who wrote over 27 novels, including "A Case of Conscience" for which he won a Hugo Award and one of the earliest Star Trek novels "Spock Must Die!" He also adapted the original Star Trek novels for a series of Star Trek Readers in the late 1960's and proved himself to be as good at novelization as anybody I have ever come across. The details he puts into the stories, without adding anything new to the actual tale, are amazing. Just read the beginning of his version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" where he talks about how the "harmless" little creatures. This volume also includes the novelizations of "The Last Gunfight," "The Doomsday Machine," "Assignment: Earth," "Mirror, Mirror," "Friday's Child" and "Amok Time." So with Tribbles, Mirror and Amok you have three classic Star Trek episodes that are on most people's list of Top 10 episodes. Now we just have to get these books reprinted again for the next generation of Trekkers.