Star Trek: Log Two

Star Trek: Logs #2

by Alan Dean Foster

More lively adaptations from television's most popular science-fiction series!

—Complete in this volume—

The Survivor: Our old friend Carter Winston is back aboard the Enterprise for a visit—or is he?

The Lorelei Signal: A strange "siren's song" calls the men of the Enterprise to an exotic planet—Lt. Uhura to the rescue!

The Infinite Vulcan: On a routine mission to Phylos, Spock is mysteriously kidnapped—he faces a dubious future!

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Space Opera, Adventure, Science Fiction Fantasy

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1974

About the author

Bestselling science fiction writer Alan Dean Foster was born in New York City in 1946, but raised mainly in California. He received a B.A. in Political Science from UCLA in 1968, and a M.F.A. in 1969. Foster lives in Arizona with his wife, but he enjoys traveling because it gives him opportunities to meet new people and explore new places and cultures. This interest is carried over to his writing, but with a twist: the new places encountered in his books are likely to be on another planet, and the people may belong to an alien race.

Foster began his career as an author when a letter he sent to Arkham Collection was purchased by the editor and published in the magazine in 1968. His first novel, The Tar-Aiym Krang, introduced the Humanx Commonwealth, a galactic alliance between humans and an insectlike race called Thranx. Several other novels, including the Icerigger trilogy, are also set in the world of the Commonwealth. The Tar-Aiym Krang also marked the first appearance of Flinx, a young man with paranormal abilities, who reappears in other books, including Orphan Star, For Love of Mother-Not, and Flinx in Flux.

Foster has also written The Damned series and the Spellsinger series, which includes The Hour of the Gate, The Moment of the Magician, The Paths of the Perambulator, and Son of Spellsinger, among others. Other books include novelizations of science fiction movies and television shows such as Star Trek, The Black Hole, Starman, Star Wars, and the Alien movies. Splinter of the Mind's Eye, a bestselling novel based on the Star Wars movies, received the Galaxy Award in 1979. The book Cyber Way won the Southwest Book Award for Fiction in 1990. His novel Our Lady of the Machine won him the UPC Award (Spain) in 1993. He also won the Ignotus Award (Spain) in 1994 and the Stannik Award (Russia) in 2000.

Reviews

[Jerry (Rebel With a Massive Media Library) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I have the animated Star Trek series on DVD, I have yet to watch it...but, this book has me wanting to give it a try! These were some exciting adventures!

[Nadienne Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

A novelization of three Star Trek: The Animated Series episodes, somewhat expanded upon by Mr. Foster, and enjoyable enough to read. The best thing about them is that Mr. Foster took the time to link the stories, which are completely unrelated - as is usual in a "bottle episode" type of show - but a simple few sentences at the beginning of each section explains how they got from entry 1 to 2 to 3. I think "bottle episode" type shows really should follow this format.

If these are lacking anything, it's the absence of Chekov. I know that Chekov wasn't in the actual Animated Series for budgetary reasons (although they bought one of his scripts as way of making it right - "The Infinite Vulcan" (which is actually in this book) - but still, the novel had no such restrictions and he could have been added in some way.

Star Trek completionists ahoy - read this book! :)

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

As I sat down to read Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Two with a cup of tea (Earl Grey. Hot.), I thought about all of the many traditions that make Star Trek so contradictory, so sprawling, and, for me anyway, so great.

One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek is a TNG episode, "Tapestry." At the end of it, Picard is thinking about a part of his life that he is ashamed of. In his words:

"There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were loose threads, untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads it unraveled the tapestry of my life."

A lot of people today want to think of Trek as progressive. It advocated against firing first or villainizing rivals during the Cold War, and there's even a Wikipedia page about Kirk and Uhura kissing on TV--a big deal at the time. But Trek taps into some very conservative roots, too. Worf is a hero in spite of his being mostly a deadbeat dad, Geordie is a nice guy to a fault, and it's odd to me how often it seemed like Counsellor Troi was violated. Was there nothing else for her to do? Trek's progressive politics have not kept many of its fans from groupish gatekeeping online. That tapestry of influences is present in these three Logs, too.

Each one of these stories is about exploration, which is no big surprise since the Enterprise's five year mission is to seek out strange new worlds, but it's also no big surprised because Star Trek is inspired by the Age of Discovery. Both Captain James T. Kirk's name and his guiding principle to venture boldly into the unknown are inspired by James Cook. Those Age of the Sail explorers seem courageous to me, which is good, but they were also part of the project of colonization, which is bad. Although Sulu says at one point that the Federation adheres to higher principles, at another point, Kirk reflects on his colonizing mission: "It was imperative to make an official survey and lay claim to the world quickly--before the Klingons, say, or the Romulans discovered it. Inhabitable worlds were not all that common, and competition for expansion was fierce" (129). Colonizing, but this time maybe we'll do it right?

Trek's representation of women is also a bit uneven. Although Captain Janeway is great, Trek's female characters have often been plot devices for didactic explorations of emotion for the imagined audience (awkward boys). An admirable man is noble when he is rational and productive, but women can compromise those qualities with their alluring and emotional manipulation. In fact, that is exactly how "The Lorelei Signal" plays out. Lieutenant Uhura has a whole chapter to shine here, which seems good, but it's because manipulative women are mind controlling Kirk, Spock, and McCoy with their feminine wiles, which seems bad. The feminine antagonists in this chapter use music to manipulate men's emotions, which distracts them from their duty. Just thinking of the word 'duty' nearly allows Kirk to break from their mind control, but the manipulation proves too strong. In "The Survivor," meanwhile, a female security office fails to shoot a shapeshifting alien who looks like her fiance. Although Starfleet officers often fail to stun intruders in the first third of their missions, Foster still describes the unfortunate woman as speaking "idiotically" as she explains her failure to shoot. Less than ideal.

If you ask me, Trek gets most of its progressive points outlining an ethos of inclusive pluralism within its starships and its larger mission. Spock's Vulcan motto, "Infinite diversity in infinite combination," appears here as a counter to another human's xenophobic and autocratic preferences. Further, Spock's Vulcan mind meld ability is a metaphor for radical empathy. Of course, this admirable ethos is somewhat compromised by the fact that every alien species is depicted as duplicitous. Shape shifting, mind controlling, and backwards, the galaxy is full of "natives" waiting for the Enterprise to make contact.

For some people, the more conservative strands that make up the tapestry of Star Trek must be off putting, but I have always been drawn to it anyway. When Star Trek works, it's really great, and I think about many of its lessons even now as I approach middle age. I especially love the way one of the newest series, Star Trek: Discovery, has worked to stay true to so many threads of Star Trek's tapestry while still charting its own path. It feels like a metaphor for how all of us move through the culture as we live out our lives. We cannot erase those memories we are ashamed of, so we move on with them as a part of us, trying to do better.

Thankfully, some things about Star Trek will never get old: flip style communicators, transporters, and especially these 1970s book covers. Masterpieces!

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't really think a synopsis is necessary here. This book is a collection of three short Star Trek stories from the animated TV show. You know if you're the target audience here or not. Either that, or you live under a rock.

I've been trying very hard to avoid a reading slump lately and I've been reaching for a lot of short story collections to feed the evasive nature of this situation.

These stories were fun. They were exactly what I would expect from a Star Trek Log. although, one story had a nice display of female strength on the Enterprise. That was highly appreciated. Again, you know who you are, if Star Trek is your thing, I definitely recommend the Star Trek Logs.

[Vega :)]

the lorelei signal är kanske det minst bra avsnittet av den animerade serien men de andra två kompenserade för det 👍. allting är lite för ingående beskrivet på ett sätt jag verkligen inte gillar ("det kanske var metall men det kanske var sten men det såg typ inte ut som det men-" håll käääft jag vill se Spock var är Spock), men jag gillar verkligen hur Kirk är skriven, hur mycket väldigt starka känslor och impulser han tränger undan och hur mycket han anstränger sig för att verka på olika sätt. väldigt in character

[Rex Libris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This volume contains episodes #4, #5, and #6 of the animated series. Two of the episodes are cliches of the science fiction world: #4 involves a shape-shifting alien, and #5 involves the rapid aging of crew members as their life force is sucked out. The solution to the aging is one of the worst ideas in Star Trek, and subsequently overused in the animated series. Supposedly the healthy pattern is stored in the transporter, and a run through the transporter forcing that pattern on the crew members fixes everything. Episode #6 is not a cliche, but does slip into the realm of the ridiculous with a 24 foot tall clone of Spock.

[Rafeeq O. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Alan Dean Foster's 1974 Star Trek Log Two contains 3 stories adapted by Foster from the screenplays of the early 1970s animated cartoon television series that had been spun off from the original acted series of half a dozen years earlier.

Never having seen the animated series, I can make no comparison between the original episodes and Foster's adaptations, in the way I occasionally have with James Blish's adaptations of the original series. I can comment, though, that the cartoon series evinces some differences from the acted series. Here, for example, we have a handy piece of technology called a "life-support belt," which creates a very thin but tough force field, meaning that characters can stomp around in vacuum or poisonous atmospheres as if in a spacesuit. And of course another product of the animated nature of the show is that we have a few alien crew members--three-legged and three-armed, cat-like, or winged, for example--who would have been too expensive to produce every week via elaborate costuming, along with other odd aliens occasionally encountered. These differences are commonsensical, at least in science fiction, and they do not draw attention to themselves unduly.

"The Survivor," whose original screenplay was by James Schmerer, starts with one of those cliched comically boozy Christmas parties, only now not in some mid-twentieth-century office on Earth but aboard the Enterprise in deep space. Here, "on the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone" (1975 Ballantine paperback, page 6) the Enterprise stumbles upon a "compact and very expensive" (page 8) yacht of Federation make, now wrecked and engineless...yet with one life reading (page 9). The survivor beamed aboard appears to be "a living legend--the foremost interstellar trader of [their] time, Carter Winston," a man "[w]ho...acquired a dozen fortunes, only to use his great wealth again and again to aid Federation colonies in times of need or disaster" but who has "been out of touch with civilization for five years" (page 15) and presumed dead. The border of the Neutral Zone, however--even accidental violation of which brings a penalty, per treaty, of confiscation of the trespassing ship (pages 23, 41, and 44)--is a dangerous place for wrecked ships and functioning ships alike...

In "The Lorelei Signal," whose original screenplay was by Margaret Armen, an admiral from "Starfleet Science Center" (page 72) sends Kirk to investigate a sort of interstellar Bermuda Triangle, an area in which in the past 150 years a starship from the Federation, the Romulan Empire, or the Klingon Empire has disappeared "precisely every twenty-seven point three-four star-years since its initial mapping" (page 75). Now, this "precisely" grates a little--that is, for these infrequent but regular losses to occur, a ship needs to be trundling through the area at exactly that time, not a month earlier or a week later, for example--but despite that, the story is entertaining. Once the strange signal comes out of the void, a "wavering tone" that is "sensuous, haunting[,] and unmistakably melodic," not to mention "thoroughly captivating" (page 79), the reader of course recognizes the problem more quickly than the Communications Officer. Yet although Lt. Uhura at first misses her chance to head off the situation--because otherwise, I suppose, there would be no plot--naturally she eventually will realize the danger and take charge.

"The Infinite Vulcan," whose original screenplay was by Walter Koenig--the actor who played Chekov in the acted series--has the Enterprise "ordered to survey a new planet recently discovered at the Federation-Galactic fringe" (page 129). "The discovery of a potentially colonizable world [takes] precedence over any but the direst emergency." This planet is "downright lush," and "[e]verything seem[s] to point to a choice discovery, just waiting for her first load of Federation settlers--until Sulu's surface probes located the city" (page 129). So we have the ol' mysterious uninhabited city schtick, with a mysterious "electronic probe of some sophistication" (page 133), and funky aliens. And we also have, um...with complete disregard of the cube-square rule--by which the mass of an enlarged object increases according to the cube, whereas cross-section of vertical bone or girder increases only according to the square, such that a quadruple-sized person weighs 64 times the original but has only 16 times the weight-carrying bone are--a human clone "just under twenty-four feet" tale (page 146).

Strangely, as with the previous book in the series, a minor punctuational problem sometimes crops up. When quoted speech continues without break from one paragraph to another--the speaker has a fair bit to say, that is, and breaking it into more than one paragraph makes it easier to understand--the convention is to keep opening quotation marks on the beginning of each paragraph but not use closing quotation marks until the end. Speech flowing across three paragraphs, for example, thus will have three beginning quotation marks--one set starting each paragraph--but then only a single set of closing quotation marks, at the end of the quote. Usage here is a bit spotty, occasionally correct but sometimes incorrect--though not as bad as in Star Trek Log One--and 'tis a minor-ish annoyance. I think it likely, however, that the error is not Foster's but that of some random dingus down in Copyediting.

In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Two may begin with stories originally from a cartoon show, yet the adaptations are well done and--despite the eye-catching but silly 24-foot giant in the last tale--aimed at an adult audience, and for any fan of the starship Enterprise and its historic five-year mission, the book will be a swift and enjoyable read of 4.5 or perhaps 5 stars.

[Mekon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alan Dean Foster is a prolific hack with a career built on TV and film novelisations. This is yet another which rattles along with perfectly viable prose and minimal description - just enough to remind a reader who's seen the original source material.

Having not seen the original source material, some of the setting came as a surprise to me. The Enterprise had a three-legged helmsman - well I never! Plot-wise it was all pretty derivative and superficial, certainly nothing taxing - although there's some intriguing insight into the state of "women's lib", or early seventies feminism, here.

All in all, a not unpleasant way to spend a few lunchtimes.

[Annika · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was...fine. It's a novelization of three episodes from Star Trek: The Animated Series. I read it to pass the time while waiting for an interlibrary loan book, and for that purpose it worked. I have read Star Trek novels in the past that genuinely expanded the Trek universe in some way or explored an interesting moral question as the best Trek episodes do. This book did neither of those things, and clearly no one checked it for continuity with the show. (The Romulans are described as "reptilians" multiple times, for instance. There were other weird comments I noticed at the time, but I'm writing this a few days later, and that's the only one that stuck with me.)

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Silly and fun, and like many works like this, sprinkled with tiny bits of actual literature:

“What, exactly, is a flash of genius?

Mental stimulation. A concatenation of cerebral cross-currents. The fusion of one particle of cause with another of effect which — once in a while, just once in a while — produces a molecule of solution.”

[Carmen Hernandez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Star Trek book down (Thanks, Half Price Books!) I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed Log 5, and I think I'll acquire the others in the series too if I can find them. I really enjoy Alan Dean Foster's writing style a lot. I'm excited to see what he does with the Tribbles episode if he's rewritten that screenplay, now on to my next book.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, so the writing to try and make these adapted scripts into short stories can be a little clunky and sometimes downright wrong, (at one point Mr Scott, who is Scottish, starts speaking… Welsh?). But it was fun to read these things I remember watching on the animated show.

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1976 "logs 1 thru 9" grade B
2014 "Log 2" grade B

B+, C+, B+

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

These are adaptations of the animated tv series. Many of the stories are quite enjoyable.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book does the job and was a pleasure to read. There was nothing ground shaking within its pages, but it was certainly worth picking up.

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great adaptation from the stories presented on the animated series.

[Ron Lang-Alon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, nice.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated, but ok.

[Gary Fortuin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Giant Spock! Again these novelizations of the animated series prove to be entertaining. Who doesn’t like a giant clone of Spock?

[Fredric Rice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty much cookie-cutter short story series roughly based on the Star Trek original series. Nothing special, really, and rather silly these days.

[Mike Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

23

[Tarrin "Driving Crooner" S · Rating 3 out of 5]

nothing special but 3 decent stories. I don't regret reading it

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three stories they used in the animated tv series.Don't let that put you off. Well-written stories, enjoyed reading them.

[John Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun!

[D.R. Wells · Rating 5 out of 5]

Star Trek Log 2, written by Alan Dean Foster, is a novelization of three episodes from the Star Trek: The Animated Series. It is an exciting and engaging read that captures the spirit of the original series while also providing a unique take on the beloved characters. The story follows the crew of the USS Enterprise as they explore strange new worlds and encounter alien civilizations.

The book is well-written and full of action and adventure. The characters are well-developed and their interactions are believable and entertaining. The plot moves quickly and keeps readers engaged throughout. It's a great read for any fan of science fiction or Star Trek in general.

Overall, I highly recommend Star Trek Log 2 by Alan Dean Foster to anyone looking for an exciting, engaging read that captures the spirit of the original series while also providing a unique take on beloved characters.

[Baal Of · Rating 3 out of 5]

I initially gave this book four stars, and while it is true that my love of the original series is strong, and that I love reading these books, it really isn't as good as the four star books I've read so far this year. These stories aren't complex, or amazing, but for me it's like spending time with old friends, which I realize biases my response. The first story is a variation on a theme that has been done a number of times in the Star Trek universe - an alien that poses as human. Its deception is eventually discovered, conflict ensues, and then is resolved in a typically humanistic manner without the need to utterly destroy the other. The second story was particularly enjoyable, even as a fairly straightforward reinterpretation of the Greek mythology of the sirens, due to the fact that the women of the Enterprise were the heroes. This continues a trend from the original series to push progressive social attitudes, even if it isn't don't perfectly. The third story was the weakest, with a solution that was obvious to me as soon as the problem was created.

[Rich Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Star Trek Log that pretty much coasts by on the strength of Alan Dean Foster's interpretations of cartoon scripts, this particular volume isn't one of the best in the series. The animated series had about the same percentage of clunkers to great episodes as the original series did, and the three episodes in this one (The Survivor, The Lorelei Signal, and The Infinite Vulcan) are all middling shows. Foster does make them rise above the limited level of the original stories, though.

The Star Trek completist will want to read these, but any other fan will want to get the books with the really good animated series episode adaptations (like Yesteryear or More Trouble, More Tribbles or the Counter-Clock Incident).

[Cary Spratt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as enjoyable for me as Log One. Still well-written, but I had trouble getting through the first two stories. Not Foster's fault - he does a good job of turning the TAS episodes into short stories, but when the plots of the episodes themselves are lame... Maybe they weren't quite as cliched when they originally aired, but 'misunderstood shape-shifting alien masquerades as missing human' and 'alien women lure hapless spacemen to their doom'? Were those ever NOT cliched? The third story is somewhat more interesting (planet of the Ents?), but still not strong enough to pull the other two into a higher rating.

[Ronald · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another set of three adventures from the animated series. As in Star Trek: Log One, the episodes are of pretty poor quality, but the author makes the best of the material (this time without the many typographical errors that plagued the first installment). Still manages to be somewhat enjoyable and if you're a fan of the original series and haven't seen the cartoon.

The episodes included herein are:
"The Survivor"
"The Lorelei Signal"
"The Infinite Vulcan"

[Curtiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another three episodes from the Animated Star Trek Saturday morning cartoon series have been adapted by Alan Dean Foster in novella form. Nearly the only format available of the Animated Star Trek series.