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Star Trek: Logs #7
Star Trek: Log Seven
The seventh in a series of Star Trek: The Animated Series adaptations published by Ballantine Books.
—Volume seven includes one adaptation—
The Counter-Clock Incident: When the Enterprise enters a negative universe, former captain Robert April saves the ship as the crew age backwards!
—Volume seven includes one adaptation—
The Counter-Clock Incident: When the Enterprise enters a negative universe, former captain Robert April saves the ship as the crew age backwards!
182 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1976
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324 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 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 27, 2022
Log Seven, AKA The Counter-Clock Incident. It was kind of a cool little novel. We get to see the Aprils! Which, I loved getting to read past stories before about them, so anything I can to 'see' them in action, is a plus. The Klingon part of the story, was not as good.
March 17, 2021
I am Jorn. Listen to my book review podcast on the KAG.org website, under the 'Bound by Honor' section.
April 6, 2025
Alan Dean Foster's 1976 Star Trek Log Seven contains--unlike the previous books in the series, 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 Counter-Clock Incident," whose original screenplay was by John Culver, actually is more like a pair of stories than a single one, though by the end we will discover that they indeed are linked. Regarding what ties the two tales together...well, plot-spoiler-wise, I will refrain from revealing that. I will comment, however, that the gimmick does resolve some grumbling I initially had about some issues of the first half of the book.
The original Star Trek pilot notwithstanding--the one with Captain Pike, and which later was turned into the 2-part episode "The Cage"--here the first commander of the Enterprise was Robert April, and in flashback we see the young captain gazing with "reveren[ce]" at the blueprints of the "[m]agnificent" new NCC-1701 whose "major components are being put together out in the San Francisco yards" (1978 Del Rey paperback, page 3), with "[f]ree-space assembly" planned in "another eight months" (page 4). The surprise assignment of captaincy that brings April both "fear and...thrill" (page 4), the ship's construction in the great "United Federation of Planets Starfleet assembly station [swinging] in majestic orbit around Earth" like "a bombed toy factory" (page 6), the details, the christening ceremony, the first command sending the great ship out into deep space-- These pages are thoroughly enjoyable...and then the perspective shifts, and of course we are back up to the present, with Kirk finishing his log entry about taking the "distinguished passenger" of Commodore April, who "for the past twenty-five years" has been "the Federation ambassador-at-large," to "an inter-Federation ambassadorial gathering" on "the planet Babel" (page 11), which of course was to be the site of another conference in the 1960s original series.
As is apparently not uncommon on an Enterprise run to Babel, however, something bad happens. This time, at least Spock's dad is not aboard to get stabbed. Instead, as the ship heads past the recent nova of Beta Niobe--in the past timeline of whose planet Kirk and Spock and McCoy had been perilously stuck in "All Our Yesterdays"--an unidentified ship comes blasting up "at a rate theoretically impossible for matter to achieve" (page 16), running "at a speed on the order of warp-thirty-six" (page 17). So... Yes, it indeed is time for a, um...counter-clock situation, one in which ripping at a too-high speed through a nova means coming out of a newly born star in another universe, a reality where time runs backward, along, of course, with all physical and biological processes--all of 'em.
Here, for example, "since the flow of time is reversed, it is natural for one to be born at an advanced age and to die in infancy," and a species "begins with all the knowledge it will ever have, and as it evolves, the knowledge is progressively lost" (page 40). Space is blank white, and stars are black, and the speech of the humanoid inhabitants, the Arretians, runs backward. I suppose we should be glad, despite Spock's assertion that the laws of physics are "apparently reversed here" (page 31), that gravity doesn't work backwards, nor, even more importantly, do the strong and weak nuclear forces holding matter together... Oh, well. Entertaining as a backwards time flow always is in science fiction, it never bears up very well once we truly start thinking about it.
Naturally, though, we can't think too much, as the plot is too urgent. Can Spock and the Arretian scientists discover a method for the Enterprise to get back to its own universe? And once a potential solution is devised, can it be accomplished when the entire crew soon will be "turning into children" (page 51)? Well, of course--this is Star Trek, right?
As usual, it's an exquisitely close call, and it requires a surprise extra fix, plus another surprising follow-up twist...and then it's time for another adventure. Now "an emergency priority call" springs Kirk from the "endless speeches, parties, and conferences" (page 64) of Babel. "[O]n an otherwise uninhabited moon in the Theta Draconis system" is a physicist whose "brilliance [is] exceeded only by his unorthodox methodology, which [is] in turn matched by the volitivity of his temperament" (page 66). The thing is, the misanthropic Delminnen seems to have developed some sort of mechanism for, ah...destroying entire planets (page 67).
Spock explains to Kirk that this indeed "seems beyond the capability of modern technology... Total annihilation of a planetary mass, yes. Selective disintegration, no" (page 68). Commodore Sen of Starfleet Security therefore directs Kirk to "invite Van Delminnen to return to Terra, where he is to be granted a permanent appointment to Starfleet Research at a generous annual stipend"; and if this doesn't sway the strange genius, the Captain is "authorized to use whatever means [he] deem[s] necessary to entice him and his sister aboard ship" (page 67).
Yet in addition to the prickliness of the "would-be hermit" (page 68), the mission is complicated by the arrival of a Klingon warship...whose captain, "appear[ing] almost friendly" in his transmission, "even smil[ing]" (page 72), casually addresses Kirk as "Jim" (page 73). So from the invitation for a reunion and a jolly toast about the old days to a race to capture the man who Is Become The Destroyer Of Worlds, to a desperate running gun battle that will determine the fate of the Federation, to discovery of a sunless "wandering world with a breathable atmosphere" (page 133) where the wily might "propose a contest" (page 138) of the kind fairly often seen in the original series, the plot moves with pleasant unpredictability.
This second section of the book is made particularly enjoyable by the chemistry between Kirk and Kumara, who "may just be the best starship commander the Klingons have" (page 74). There is good action, an overhanging jeopardy that seems like it should be impossible to overcome, and some nice bits of humor as well. And then at the very end we at last will learn the truth that ties both subplots together.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Seven 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 Counter-Clock Incident," whose original screenplay was by John Culver, actually is more like a pair of stories than a single one, though by the end we will discover that they indeed are linked. Regarding what ties the two tales together...well, plot-spoiler-wise, I will refrain from revealing that. I will comment, however, that the gimmick does resolve some grumbling I initially had about some issues of the first half of the book.
The original Star Trek pilot notwithstanding--the one with Captain Pike, and which later was turned into the 2-part episode "The Cage"--here the first commander of the Enterprise was Robert April, and in flashback we see the young captain gazing with "reveren[ce]" at the blueprints of the "[m]agnificent" new NCC-1701 whose "major components are being put together out in the San Francisco yards" (1978 Del Rey paperback, page 3), with "[f]ree-space assembly" planned in "another eight months" (page 4). The surprise assignment of captaincy that brings April both "fear and...thrill" (page 4), the ship's construction in the great "United Federation of Planets Starfleet assembly station [swinging] in majestic orbit around Earth" like "a bombed toy factory" (page 6), the details, the christening ceremony, the first command sending the great ship out into deep space-- These pages are thoroughly enjoyable...and then the perspective shifts, and of course we are back up to the present, with Kirk finishing his log entry about taking the "distinguished passenger" of Commodore April, who "for the past twenty-five years" has been "the Federation ambassador-at-large," to "an inter-Federation ambassadorial gathering" on "the planet Babel" (page 11), which of course was to be the site of another conference in the 1960s original series.
As is apparently not uncommon on an Enterprise run to Babel, however, something bad happens. This time, at least Spock's dad is not aboard to get stabbed. Instead, as the ship heads past the recent nova of Beta Niobe--in the past timeline of whose planet Kirk and Spock and McCoy had been perilously stuck in "All Our Yesterdays"--an unidentified ship comes blasting up "at a rate theoretically impossible for matter to achieve" (page 16), running "at a speed on the order of warp-thirty-six" (page 17). So... Yes, it indeed is time for a, um...counter-clock situation, one in which ripping at a too-high speed through a nova means coming out of a newly born star in another universe, a reality where time runs backward, along, of course, with all physical and biological processes--all of 'em.
Here, for example, "since the flow of time is reversed, it is natural for one to be born at an advanced age and to die in infancy," and a species "begins with all the knowledge it will ever have, and as it evolves, the knowledge is progressively lost" (page 40). Space is blank white, and stars are black, and the speech of the humanoid inhabitants, the Arretians, runs backward. I suppose we should be glad, despite Spock's assertion that the laws of physics are "apparently reversed here" (page 31), that gravity doesn't work backwards, nor, even more importantly, do the strong and weak nuclear forces holding matter together... Oh, well. Entertaining as a backwards time flow always is in science fiction, it never bears up very well once we truly start thinking about it.
Naturally, though, we can't think too much, as the plot is too urgent. Can Spock and the Arretian scientists discover a method for the Enterprise to get back to its own universe? And once a potential solution is devised, can it be accomplished when the entire crew soon will be "turning into children" (page 51)? Well, of course--this is Star Trek, right?
As usual, it's an exquisitely close call, and it requires a surprise extra fix, plus another surprising follow-up twist...and then it's time for another adventure. Now "an emergency priority call" springs Kirk from the "endless speeches, parties, and conferences" (page 64) of Babel. "[O]n an otherwise uninhabited moon in the Theta Draconis system" is a physicist whose "brilliance [is] exceeded only by his unorthodox methodology, which [is] in turn matched by the volitivity of his temperament" (page 66). The thing is, the misanthropic Delminnen seems to have developed some sort of mechanism for, ah...destroying entire planets (page 67).
Spock explains to Kirk that this indeed "seems beyond the capability of modern technology... Total annihilation of a planetary mass, yes. Selective disintegration, no" (page 68). Commodore Sen of Starfleet Security therefore directs Kirk to "invite Van Delminnen to return to Terra, where he is to be granted a permanent appointment to Starfleet Research at a generous annual stipend"; and if this doesn't sway the strange genius, the Captain is "authorized to use whatever means [he] deem[s] necessary to entice him and his sister aboard ship" (page 67).
Yet in addition to the prickliness of the "would-be hermit" (page 68), the mission is complicated by the arrival of a Klingon warship...whose captain, "appear[ing] almost friendly" in his transmission, "even smil[ing]" (page 72), casually addresses Kirk as "Jim" (page 73). So from the invitation for a reunion and a jolly toast about the old days to a race to capture the man who Is Become The Destroyer Of Worlds, to a desperate running gun battle that will determine the fate of the Federation, to discovery of a sunless "wandering world with a breathable atmosphere" (page 133) where the wily might "propose a contest" (page 138) of the kind fairly often seen in the original series, the plot moves with pleasant unpredictability.
This second section of the book is made particularly enjoyable by the chemistry between Kirk and Kumara, who "may just be the best starship commander the Klingons have" (page 74). There is good action, an overhanging jeopardy that seems like it should be impossible to overcome, and some nice bits of humor as well. And then at the very end we at last will learn the truth that ties both subplots together.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Seven 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.
August 11, 2017
"The Counter-Clock Incident" was the last episode of Star Trek The Animated Series (TAS) to be broadcast. Its an interesting story involving the first captain of the Enterprise, Robert April. Foster adds some interesting background material as a kind of prologue to the story. I can't help wondering if that opening (spoiler warning) - with the christening of the Enterprise - served as inspiration for the beginning of the film "Star Trek: Generations", or even Star Trek (2009).
Perhaps the main drawback here, as plagued several TAS episodes, is being burdened with a slightly silly concept: in this case, that of the crew becoming younger and younger until they are children and babies. Was anyone really clamoring for an episode with Captain Kirk as a baby? Thankfully that aspect of the storyline is rather brief.
The "Counter-Clock Incident" storyline itself actually only covers about the first 63 pages of the book and wraps up rather suddenly. Then Fosters shifts into expanding the story into new, original territory not covered in the television storyline, involving Klingons and a mobile planet with no sun. However, he does tie it all back together again at the end. As I reached the end I really did enjoy this story and felt like this was one of Foster's better expanded editions of the animated Trek, largely due to this expanded storyline.
Perhaps the main drawback here, as plagued several TAS episodes, is being burdened with a slightly silly concept: in this case, that of the crew becoming younger and younger until they are children and babies. Was anyone really clamoring for an episode with Captain Kirk as a baby? Thankfully that aspect of the storyline is rather brief.
The "Counter-Clock Incident" storyline itself actually only covers about the first 63 pages of the book and wraps up rather suddenly. Then Fosters shifts into expanding the story into new, original territory not covered in the television storyline, involving Klingons and a mobile planet with no sun. However, he does tie it all back together again at the end. As I reached the end I really did enjoy this story and felt like this was one of Foster's better expanded editions of the animated Trek, largely due to this expanded storyline.
August 26, 2020
Two stories in this volume. In the first the Enterprise goes through a super nova to a universe where everything runs backwards. Instead of aging, the crew grows younger. They escape back to their own universe but have to be restored to their real ages by the old canard of the transport logs. The dead horse was beaten into the ground long before this episode.
In the second story the Enterprise doe battle with Klingons over a brother and sister who made a device that can blow up planets. In the initial struggle Kirk ends up with one and the Klingons the other. They meet on a neutral planet to see if they each trick the other out of the siblings.
In the second story the Enterprise doe battle with Klingons over a brother and sister who made a device that can blow up planets. In the initial struggle Kirk ends up with one and the Klingons the other. They meet on a neutral planet to see if they each trick the other out of the siblings.
July 13, 2023
I just finished this book and enjoyed it very much. Great story and kept me engaged through most of it. I actually looked forward to reading it every night.
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.
July 11, 2014
This one started off as a kind of silly and absurd adventure into a universe that runs backward, full of weird inconsistencies, and a rather pat wrap-up. Then it transitioned into what appeared to be an unconnected story, but in a pleasing twist, it was all connected in another version of the super-powerful energy beings playing around with the humans and Klingons, all in a grand effort to test them. It's been done before in the Star Trek universe, but somehow I really enjoyed this one. As usual, Foster's prose is weak, and borders on the goofy at times, but the characters and story carry it through anyway. I guess I would have to call it a guilty pleasure.
September 4, 2009
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.
July 27, 2010
Another collection of stories based on the Saturday morning cartoon. I liked them, especially since I missed most of the cartoon episodes.
November 29, 2011
I liked the book & this is the 2nd time I've read it. Only being new on here I forgot to mark it as read when I finished it a couple of days ago.
August 9, 2022
Encounter a universe in reverse but in the end it was only an illusion.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews