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The Star Trek Reader #2
The Star Trek Reader II
Here for the first time in hardcover are 19 of the most exciting episodes that ever appeared on the award-winning Star Trek television series. Novelized by the renowned science fiction writer James Blish, each of these stories is a little gem with a permanent sparkle, and their combination a collector's item.
Eerie, frightening, mysterious, humorous and heartwarming, The Star Trek Reader II is a mind-bending journey to the outer reaches of the imagination. In The Devil in the Dark, we meet the unforgettable Horta, a shaggy, acid-secreting animal whose proteins are based on silicon instead of carbon--with shocking results. When finally cornered after terrorizing a group of miners, the Horta tells (in a voice that sounds like pebbles in a can) a tale of heartbreak and suffering understood only by Spock through the Vulcan mind-lock. In Obsession, the reader is bewitched by an illusive creature that hovers between matter and energy; after killing in a most ghastly way, it escapes into another dimension. And in Charlie's Law, we meet a space orphan, an ordinary looking seventeen-year-old whose desperate adolescent needs combine dangerously with a superhuman ability--making him perhaps the worst monster ever encountered by the crew of the Enterprise.
In Hugo Award-winning Menagerie, we see how the crew members fight one of the most subtle weapons ever devised--illusion. But in Dagger of the Mind, we see, poignantly revealed, an even more powerful weapon-loneliness.
In The Enterprise Incident, the crew seriously questions Captain Kirk's sanity, whose bizarre behavior ranges from blatantly violating Romulan territory to tossing an ethnic slur at Mr. Spock. A Vulcanoid woman commander finds a way to soothe Spocks's ruffled ego--if he has one.
These and thirteen mroe episodes--many of them selected by the fans themselves--vividly demonstrate why the slogan Star Trek lives! will go on forever.
JAMES BLISH was a biologist as well as a prolific writer who wrote more than twenty-seven novels including the Hugo Award-winning, A Case of Conscience.
Includes the following stories:
"Charlie's Law"
"Dagger of the Mind"
The Unreal McCoy"
"Balance of Terror"
"The Naked Time"
"Miri"
"The Conscience of the King"
"All Our Yesterdays"
"The Devil in the Dark"
"Journey to Babel"
"The Menagerie"
"The Enterprise Incident"
"A Piece of the Action"
"Return to Tomorrow"
"The Ultimate Computer"
"That Which Survives"
"Obsession"
"The Return of the Archons"
"The Immunity Syndrome"
Eerie, frightening, mysterious, humorous and heartwarming, The Star Trek Reader II is a mind-bending journey to the outer reaches of the imagination. In The Devil in the Dark, we meet the unforgettable Horta, a shaggy, acid-secreting animal whose proteins are based on silicon instead of carbon--with shocking results. When finally cornered after terrorizing a group of miners, the Horta tells (in a voice that sounds like pebbles in a can) a tale of heartbreak and suffering understood only by Spock through the Vulcan mind-lock. In Obsession, the reader is bewitched by an illusive creature that hovers between matter and energy; after killing in a most ghastly way, it escapes into another dimension. And in Charlie's Law, we meet a space orphan, an ordinary looking seventeen-year-old whose desperate adolescent needs combine dangerously with a superhuman ability--making him perhaps the worst monster ever encountered by the crew of the Enterprise.
In Hugo Award-winning Menagerie, we see how the crew members fight one of the most subtle weapons ever devised--illusion. But in Dagger of the Mind, we see, poignantly revealed, an even more powerful weapon-loneliness.
In The Enterprise Incident, the crew seriously questions Captain Kirk's sanity, whose bizarre behavior ranges from blatantly violating Romulan territory to tossing an ethnic slur at Mr. Spock. A Vulcanoid woman commander finds a way to soothe Spocks's ruffled ego--if he has one.
These and thirteen mroe episodes--many of them selected by the fans themselves--vividly demonstrate why the slogan Star Trek lives! will go on forever.
JAMES BLISH was a biologist as well as a prolific writer who wrote more than twenty-seven novels including the Hugo Award-winning, A Case of Conscience.
Includes the following stories:
"Charlie's Law"
"Dagger of the Mind"
The Unreal McCoy"
"Balance of Terror"
"The Naked Time"
"Miri"
"The Conscience of the King"
"All Our Yesterdays"
"The Devil in the Dark"
"Journey to Babel"
"The Menagerie"
"The Enterprise Incident"
"A Piece of the Action"
"Return to Tomorrow"
"The Ultimate Computer"
"That Which Survives"
"Obsession"
"The Return of the Archons"
"The Immunity Syndrome"
457 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1976
4 people are currently reading
125 people want to read
About the author
James Blish
454 books327 followersJames Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.
He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)
Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.
Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.
He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)
Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.
From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.
Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.
Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.
His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 10, 2009
As is my habit, I lull myself to sleep reading various short-story collections and other miscellanea that I keep by the bed for such occasions. And so it was last night (the 8th) that I found myself reading James Blish's adaptations of the original ST's episodes (I had just come off of watching "The Ultimate Computer," "Assignment: Earth" and "Spectre of the Gun" so I was in a Trekking mood).
In this case, I was reading his adaptation of "The Balance of Terror," which holds a place in my personal top 5 Trek episodes. One of the interesting things about Blish's adaptations is that he was often working from the rawest of story treatments and, at times, doesn't appear to have seen the finished episode. On occasion it results in a more logical, coherent story (though I would challenge anybody to salvage "Spock's Brain"); on other occasions, the finished product was definitely superior.
In this case, "Balance" falls into the latter category. Most to its detriment, it lacks the interaction between Kirk and the Romulan commander that makes the TV episode so good. And the interactions between Spock and the rest of the crew is jarring - many in the crew actively dislike him: "The meeting in the briefing room was still going on when Spock was called out to the lab section. Once he was gone, the atmosphere promptly became more informal; neither Scott nor McCoy liked the Vulcanite, and Kirk, much though he valued his First Officer, was not entirely comfortable in his presence" (p. 50). I'm reminded of a similarly jarring note in reading "Friday's Child" (in volume 1): In Blish's adaptation, Elean is viciously cut down at the end and Kirk's reaction is (essentially) "she was a bitch and deserved it."
On the other hand, there were some variations that should have survived the editing process. First of all, the entire concept of the Neutral Zone. In the TV episode it is a zone in space monitored by a double handful of stations along a decidedly two-dimensional border; in the book, it's a zone surrounding the system of Romulus/Remus and far more believable as a sphere of monitoring satellites. Also, while both retain the idea that the Romulans and Federation never had direct communications during the war, recovered bodies did reveal enough to show that the Romulans were vulcanoid, and were probably the result of prehistoric colonization efforts. And, finally, there's no nonsense about "running silent, running deep." The idea of adapting the problems of submarine warfare to the episode is a good one but the literalness of the adoption in the TV episode is it's weakest point.
In this case, I was reading his adaptation of "The Balance of Terror," which holds a place in my personal top 5 Trek episodes. One of the interesting things about Blish's adaptations is that he was often working from the rawest of story treatments and, at times, doesn't appear to have seen the finished episode. On occasion it results in a more logical, coherent story (though I would challenge anybody to salvage "Spock's Brain"); on other occasions, the finished product was definitely superior.
In this case, "Balance" falls into the latter category. Most to its detriment, it lacks the interaction between Kirk and the Romulan commander that makes the TV episode so good. And the interactions between Spock and the rest of the crew is jarring - many in the crew actively dislike him: "The meeting in the briefing room was still going on when Spock was called out to the lab section. Once he was gone, the atmosphere promptly became more informal; neither Scott nor McCoy liked the Vulcanite, and Kirk, much though he valued his First Officer, was not entirely comfortable in his presence" (p. 50). I'm reminded of a similarly jarring note in reading "Friday's Child" (in volume 1): In Blish's adaptation, Elean is viciously cut down at the end and Kirk's reaction is (essentially) "she was a bitch and deserved it."
On the other hand, there were some variations that should have survived the editing process. First of all, the entire concept of the Neutral Zone. In the TV episode it is a zone in space monitored by a double handful of stations along a decidedly two-dimensional border; in the book, it's a zone surrounding the system of Romulus/Remus and far more believable as a sphere of monitoring satellites. Also, while both retain the idea that the Romulans and Federation never had direct communications during the war, recovered bodies did reveal enough to show that the Romulans were vulcanoid, and were probably the result of prehistoric colonization efforts. And, finally, there's no nonsense about "running silent, running deep." The idea of adapting the problems of submarine warfare to the episode is a good one but the literalness of the adoption in the TV episode is it's weakest point.
August 14, 2025
Let's be honest! Give a Star Trek fanboy or fangirl a Star Trek marathon, their probably going to want to watch it. I remember long before streaming services, DVRs, and VCRs, there were TV marathons on holidays like New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Halloween, or some other science fiction celebration like Asimov's or Gene Roddenberry's birthdays.
The Star Trek Readers do the job of Star Trek TV marathons by collecting the scripts of episodes and writing essentially a short story of what we watched on television. James Blish took on the task of novelizing these episodes, and clearly there was a market for the continuing mission of the Starship Enterprise.
To be clear, the stories are a little dated. My sons before ever watching some of these could blurt out plot points as we would watch the episodes, trying to predict how the episode would end and they could determine the result with fairly good accuracy. More importantly, they always had a general idea the character who would come up with the solution, what the solution would be, and the hero of the episode.
Here, some of my favorite episodes are: The Cage, The Devil in the Dark, and A Piece of the Action. My youngest at 5 while watching The Devil in the Dark asked me if the silicone nodes in The Devil in the Dark were eggs. Yep! We, fanboys, raise them to be fanboys.
The Star Trek Readers do the job of Star Trek TV marathons by collecting the scripts of episodes and writing essentially a short story of what we watched on television. James Blish took on the task of novelizing these episodes, and clearly there was a market for the continuing mission of the Starship Enterprise.
To be clear, the stories are a little dated. My sons before ever watching some of these could blurt out plot points as we would watch the episodes, trying to predict how the episode would end and they could determine the result with fairly good accuracy. More importantly, they always had a general idea the character who would come up with the solution, what the solution would be, and the hero of the episode.
Here, some of my favorite episodes are: The Cage, The Devil in the Dark, and A Piece of the Action. My youngest at 5 while watching The Devil in the Dark asked me if the silicone nodes in The Devil in the Dark were eggs. Yep! We, fanboys, raise them to be fanboys.
August 11, 2016
he Star Trek Reader 1 and 2 was what got me into fandom!
I just loved these stories and read them several times.
I just loved these stories and read them several times.
April 20, 2014
Enjoyable..
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews