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Star Trek: Logs #10
Star Trek: Log Ten
The tenth and final volume in a series of Star Trek: The Animated Series adaptations published by Ballantine Books.
—Volume ten includes one adaptation—
The Slaver Weapon: A group of Kzinti divert the shuttle Copernicus and retrieve a newly discovered Slaver weapon.
—Volume ten includes one adaptation—
The Slaver Weapon: A group of Kzinti divert the shuttle Copernicus and retrieve a newly discovered Slaver weapon.
250 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
3 people are currently reading
299 people want to read
About the author
Alan Dean Foster
498 books2,034 followersBestselling 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 22, 2023
This got interesting on page 185 out of 250.
The previous 184 pages felt packed with too much plot and lengthy dialogue. I think Kirk has a couple speeches that are two pages long. Did he really talk like that?
This novel is based on the Star Trek Animated Series episode by Larry Niven and has the Kzinti and mysterious Slaver weapon.
I picked this up because I wanted to see how Foster fleshed out one thirty minute episode into 250 pages. I was also curious how he wrote the Kzinti, a creation of Larry Niven, who appear in non-Trek books.
Foster "fleshed out" the one episode by crafting two or three more episodes of his own. The book feels stuffed with plot. And the dialogue sort of sounds like our favorite characters, but clunky. And Spock is a grouch. Is Spock a grouch? Also McCoy is worrying all the time but without his sense of humor.
I found this kind of a chore to read, until the last "episode' which amused me.
The previous 184 pages felt packed with too much plot and lengthy dialogue. I think Kirk has a couple speeches that are two pages long. Did he really talk like that?
This novel is based on the Star Trek Animated Series episode by Larry Niven and has the Kzinti and mysterious Slaver weapon.
I picked this up because I wanted to see how Foster fleshed out one thirty minute episode into 250 pages. I was also curious how he wrote the Kzinti, a creation of Larry Niven, who appear in non-Trek books.
Foster "fleshed out" the one episode by crafting two or three more episodes of his own. The book feels stuffed with plot. And the dialogue sort of sounds like our favorite characters, but clunky. And Spock is a grouch. Is Spock a grouch? Also McCoy is worrying all the time but without his sense of humor.
I found this kind of a chore to read, until the last "episode' which amused me.
December 21, 2018
Another really solid entry in the Star Teck Log series. As any Star Trek fan knows not all Star Trek novels are created equal. Given how many are of average to poor quality finding a series that consistently delivers on TOS fun is quite a find. I suspect it's because each of these novels is really an amalgamation of three scripts for the Start Trek animated series which were themselves leftovers from the original series. Apparently revising these ideas three times is the trick.
Foster does an excellent job in weaving these different tales together into a single novel while clearly adding to, and expanding upon, the source material he was given. He does a remarkable job of capturing the voices of these characters, not once did I doubt the dialogue of a single character in the book. That's not something that can be said about a lot of the novels.
In this book Foster combines a tale about Spock, Uhura and Sulu chasing after a ancient space artifact left behind by a 5 billion year old, and now long dead, empire known as The Slavers, with a tale of body switching at a key diplomatic negotiation where the Kilgon's and the Federation have persuade a potentially powerful new ally to join their side, with a tale of crew members on the Enterprise losing their minds and hunting each other down. It's a wild ride.
I highly recommend this books and the others I've read in this series. The only thing keeping me from giving it five stars is that often one of the three stories weaved together is not as good as the others. Such is the case with the crazed crew members tale in this book and while Foster wisely downplays it the resolution of that story is not great and it subtracts from what otherwise would have been a remarkably fun book.
Foster does an excellent job in weaving these different tales together into a single novel while clearly adding to, and expanding upon, the source material he was given. He does a remarkable job of capturing the voices of these characters, not once did I doubt the dialogue of a single character in the book. That's not something that can be said about a lot of the novels.
In this book Foster combines a tale about Spock, Uhura and Sulu chasing after a ancient space artifact left behind by a 5 billion year old, and now long dead, empire known as The Slavers, with a tale of body switching at a key diplomatic negotiation where the Kilgon's and the Federation have persuade a potentially powerful new ally to join their side, with a tale of crew members on the Enterprise losing their minds and hunting each other down. It's a wild ride.
I highly recommend this books and the others I've read in this series. The only thing keeping me from giving it five stars is that often one of the three stories weaved together is not as good as the others. Such is the case with the crazed crew members tale in this book and while Foster wisely downplays it the resolution of that story is not great and it subtracts from what otherwise would have been a remarkably fun book.
April 18, 2025
Alan Dean Foster's 1978 Star Trek Log 10 follows through with the previous three books in the series by containing--unlike Star Trek Log One through Log Six, which have 3 episodes--a single story, albeit an appropriately long and multi-stage one, adapted by Foster from a screenplay 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 Slaver Weapon," whose original screenplay of course was by Larry Niven, has three things going on. Underlying everything is the issue of Briamos, "A fairly recent Federation contact...on the fringe of explored territory. There are three closely allied solar systems containing five inhabited worlds" (1978 Del Rey paperback, page 10). "[T]he Briasmosites abruptly decided the other day to hold a conference on their homeworld during which they will decide whether or not they will enter into a preliminary alliance--social, cultural, and military--with either the Federation...or the Klingon Empire" (page 11; italics original). These folks "are noted for their impatience," and since the otherwise-responsible ambassador would not be able to reach Briamos in time (page 11), the now-closer Kirk is "directed to proceed there..., empowered as ambassador-at-large for the Federation will all due powers and rights...and to act for and in the name of the United Federation of Planets" (page 12). You know, the future of the Federation dependent upon the tight functioning of the Enterprise and the quick thinking of its captain--the usual.
However, on the way to the crucial briefing at Starbase Twenty-Five, which is on the way to Briamos, Kirk of course runs into trouble: an archaeological team "investigating the remains of a dead civilization on Gruyakin's sixth planet" has "found a sealed Slaver stasis box" (page 19). Bum bum bummmmm. The Slavers, we will recall from Niven's Known Space series, were a species of real baddies who ruled much of the galaxy a jillion years ago. They, well...um, enslaved world after world, but even after their mysterious fall, now and then one of their cached boxes with a time-freezing stasis field turns up. The contents might be anything from some billion-year-old "fresh meat" intended as "a fresh snack" for whoever "intend[ed] to come back shortly" (page 99) to an unstoppable superweapon. The Enterprise itself cannot delay its trip to Kirk's all-important briefing, but Spock and Uhura and Sulu could be sent to retrieve the box in a shuttlecraft and then catch up with Kirk at Starbase Twenty-Five soon after.
The quick mission to the archaeological dig hits another problem--two of 'em, actually. Either would be enough to kill our main characters, and one might be enough to doom the Federation. Both require plenty of action, subterfuge, and quick thinking. It's entertaining, although it is a little odd how long the plot goes on before it finally reveals, for anyone who hasn't read Niven's stories or any of the Ringworld books, exactly what a Slaver stasis box is, who the Kzinti are, and whatnot. Such a thing could have been explained with those few sentences here and there much earlier, and I think that would have been better.
In any event, at the same time that the three of the shuttle mission are battling their way from whacko to murderers, the Enterprise is threatened by a different menace on board. The factor causing it is very reminiscent of something that happened in the original series, enough so that I dare not even name the relevant episode for fear of plot-spoilage here. Still, once these problems are solved aboard both vessels--We can't kill off Spock and Uhura and Sulu, after all, or Kirk either, can we?--it's time to head to the impatient Briamosites for the tripartite conference that will determine which side of the interstellar Iron Curtain they will choose.
And yet still there is more, not just the fact that the Klingons have sent absolutely "their best" (page 166) to represent them in the talks, but another potentially ship-destroying emergency and yet a different technological glitch that-- Well, I'd better not say anything about this last, lest I reveal too much. On the one hand, the situation is a tad cartoonish, but on the other hand...well, the concept appeared in another episode of the original series, so perhaps I can't complain too much. And as usual, throughout the seriousness there are occasional nice little sprinklings of humor as well.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Ten may begin with a story originally from a cartoon show, yet the adaptation is well done and aimed at an adult audience, and for any fan of the starship Enterprise and its historic five-year mission, the book will be an enjoyable 4.5- to 5-star read.
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 Slaver Weapon," whose original screenplay of course was by Larry Niven, has three things going on. Underlying everything is the issue of Briamos, "A fairly recent Federation contact...on the fringe of explored territory. There are three closely allied solar systems containing five inhabited worlds" (1978 Del Rey paperback, page 10). "[T]he Briasmosites abruptly decided the other day to hold a conference on their homeworld during which they will decide whether or not they will enter into a preliminary alliance--social, cultural, and military--with either the Federation...or the Klingon Empire" (page 11; italics original). These folks "are noted for their impatience," and since the otherwise-responsible ambassador would not be able to reach Briamos in time (page 11), the now-closer Kirk is "directed to proceed there..., empowered as ambassador-at-large for the Federation will all due powers and rights...and to act for and in the name of the United Federation of Planets" (page 12). You know, the future of the Federation dependent upon the tight functioning of the Enterprise and the quick thinking of its captain--the usual.
However, on the way to the crucial briefing at Starbase Twenty-Five, which is on the way to Briamos, Kirk of course runs into trouble: an archaeological team "investigating the remains of a dead civilization on Gruyakin's sixth planet" has "found a sealed Slaver stasis box" (page 19). Bum bum bummmmm. The Slavers, we will recall from Niven's Known Space series, were a species of real baddies who ruled much of the galaxy a jillion years ago. They, well...um, enslaved world after world, but even after their mysterious fall, now and then one of their cached boxes with a time-freezing stasis field turns up. The contents might be anything from some billion-year-old "fresh meat" intended as "a fresh snack" for whoever "intend[ed] to come back shortly" (page 99) to an unstoppable superweapon. The Enterprise itself cannot delay its trip to Kirk's all-important briefing, but Spock and Uhura and Sulu could be sent to retrieve the box in a shuttlecraft and then catch up with Kirk at Starbase Twenty-Five soon after.
The quick mission to the archaeological dig hits another problem--two of 'em, actually. Either would be enough to kill our main characters, and one might be enough to doom the Federation. Both require plenty of action, subterfuge, and quick thinking. It's entertaining, although it is a little odd how long the plot goes on before it finally reveals, for anyone who hasn't read Niven's stories or any of the Ringworld books, exactly what a Slaver stasis box is, who the Kzinti are, and whatnot. Such a thing could have been explained with those few sentences here and there much earlier, and I think that would have been better.
In any event, at the same time that the three of the shuttle mission are battling their way from whacko to murderers, the Enterprise is threatened by a different menace on board. The factor causing it is very reminiscent of something that happened in the original series, enough so that I dare not even name the relevant episode for fear of plot-spoilage here. Still, once these problems are solved aboard both vessels--We can't kill off Spock and Uhura and Sulu, after all, or Kirk either, can we?--it's time to head to the impatient Briamosites for the tripartite conference that will determine which side of the interstellar Iron Curtain they will choose.
And yet still there is more, not just the fact that the Klingons have sent absolutely "their best" (page 166) to represent them in the talks, but another potentially ship-destroying emergency and yet a different technological glitch that-- Well, I'd better not say anything about this last, lest I reveal too much. On the one hand, the situation is a tad cartoonish, but on the other hand...well, the concept appeared in another episode of the original series, so perhaps I can't complain too much. And as usual, throughout the seriousness there are occasional nice little sprinklings of humor as well.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Ten may begin with a story originally from a cartoon show, yet the adaptation is well done and aimed at an adult audience, and for any fan of the starship Enterprise and its historic five-year mission, the book will be an enjoyable 4.5- to 5-star read.
September 10, 2012
An excellent book for Trekkies. The characterization is beautiful, especially concerning the mind swapping that occurs. The attention given to the various cultures and their various aspects was quite intriguing.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 31, 2011
The inclusion of Larry Niven's "Slaver Weapon" into the Star Trek universe was my main attraction to this book. It was fun.
May 17, 2025
The crew of the Enterprise has to go and represent the Federation at a negotiation with a new system who is deciding whether to join the Federation or the Klingon Empire. Many mishaps happen, including an appearance of Niven's Kzinti and transporter accident that involves the negotiating team having bodies and minds mixed up so that the captain et al are in other persons' bodies.
May 24, 2022
Pretty much cookie-cutter short story series roughly based on the Star Trek original series. Nothing special, really, and rather silly these days.
February 4, 2025
Liked it.
January 19, 2015
I found this retro book at the Bibles For Missions thrift store. A classic Star Trek, mint condition, written by Alan Dean Foster, and the best part - it was only 50 cents! See why I couldn't resist buying it. Unfortunately, I have to say the highlight of this book was the buying process.
I've read a bunch of Star Trek books and what I like about them is the action - the phaser shooting, the tension of an intergalactic warship standoff, the no named Redshirt who dies a dramatic/outrageous death. This book had very little of that. The main story was a war of words around a negotiating table...boring.
Also, the twist of this book was that during a transporter malfunction some of the crew switch bodies, ie Kirk is in Uhulas body, Sulu in Spocks body etc. Ok idea, except I kept getting the characters mixed up. It was hard to keep track or enjoy the 'normal' behaviour of my favourite characters.
The writing was also bad. A lot of awkward sentences. Choppy. One of those books where you find yourself trying to decipher a sentence every once in awhile. Perhaps the book was rushed. It felt rushed.
Overall, not good. Keep the cover, frame it, stick it in a scrapbook...throw away the rest.
bookwormsfeastofbooks.blogspot.ca
I've read a bunch of Star Trek books and what I like about them is the action - the phaser shooting, the tension of an intergalactic warship standoff, the no named Redshirt who dies a dramatic/outrageous death. This book had very little of that. The main story was a war of words around a negotiating table...boring.
Also, the twist of this book was that during a transporter malfunction some of the crew switch bodies, ie Kirk is in Uhulas body, Sulu in Spocks body etc. Ok idea, except I kept getting the characters mixed up. It was hard to keep track or enjoy the 'normal' behaviour of my favourite characters.
The writing was also bad. A lot of awkward sentences. Choppy. One of those books where you find yourself trying to decipher a sentence every once in awhile. Perhaps the book was rushed. It felt rushed.
Overall, not good. Keep the cover, frame it, stick it in a scrapbook...throw away the rest.
bookwormsfeastofbooks.blogspot.ca
November 3, 2014
The last of the Star Trek logs, and perhaps my favorite, this volume had a story line that hearkened back to the original series, with a transporter malfunction swapping the bodies of 4 of the officers right before they must engage in crucial diplomatic interactions with a potential new member of the federation. The inclusion of the slaver weapons was cool, and the way they were worked into the story was gratifying, as was Scotty's final snub to the Klingons. All around, and enjoyable wrap-up to this series of Star Trek books.
December 5, 2008
Instead of a collection of episodes, this is a single Star Trek novel by Alan Dean Foster, but based on the characters from the cartoon. It was OK but there seemed like a lot of extraneous stuff going on that didn't really move the plot along and that looked a bit like padding. There was a Pon Farr kind of event, not involving Vulcans, that was interesting but didn't have any straight line relationship to the rest of the plot.
February 16, 2014
Although, this adaptation sustains the principal story almost 2/3 of the way through the novel, it ends up being the least successful of Foster's novel length Log books. It has a lot of promise, and most of Foster's additions are good, the ending seems rushed, as if the novel had reached it's predetermined length and thus had to wind everything up in a few pages.
September 4, 2009
The final 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.
December 16, 2017
The last book in a great series where the familiar character from the original Star Trek Series star.
This last book in the series is arguably the best, combining new discoveries, science, new species, action, humor...
This last book in the series is arguably the best, combining new discoveries, science, new species, action, humor...
February 25, 2013
Rather better than the, admittedly low, average for Star Trek Logs 7-10.
July 19, 2016
Some nice, fun concepts with the Slavers and the Slaver boxes. It took a while for the story to get where it was going though, but a reasonably decent quick read.
June 14, 2016
Kirk meeting his Klingon while in another body
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews