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Star Trek: Logs #4
Star Trek: Log Four
The fourth in a series of Star Trek: The Animated Series adaptations. Published by Ballantine Books in February 1975. Includes:
- The Time Trap (The Enterprise becomes trapped in the Delta Triangle, an area of space where many starships have gone missing. To make matters worse, the ship also has to defend itself from the Klothos, a Klingon vessel captained by Kor.)
- More Tribbles, More Troubles (While escorting a shipment of grain to Sherman's Planet, the Enterprise encounters three "old friends:" Koloth, Cyrano Jones--and tribbles!)
- The Terratin Incident (When a strange flash of light paralyzes the entire crew of the Enterprise, they begin to shrink. Kirk beams down to the nearest planet, Cepheus, and discovers a miniature race desperate to leave their volcanic homeworld.)
- The Time Trap (The Enterprise becomes trapped in the Delta Triangle, an area of space where many starships have gone missing. To make matters worse, the ship also has to defend itself from the Klothos, a Klingon vessel captained by Kor.)
- More Tribbles, More Troubles (While escorting a shipment of grain to Sherman's Planet, the Enterprise encounters three "old friends:" Koloth, Cyrano Jones--and tribbles!)
- The Terratin Incident (When a strange flash of light paralyzes the entire crew of the Enterprise, they begin to shrink. Kirk beams down to the nearest planet, Cepheus, and discovers a miniature race desperate to leave their volcanic homeworld.)
215 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 1, 1975
5 people are currently reading
334 people want to read
About the author
Alan Dean Foster
498 books2,033 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 - 26 of 26 reviews
November 26, 2017
I have a fondness for the Star Trek Log books. I read several of them long before I saw the cartoon. I mean, years before seeing the actual cartoon. This installment is three stories, including one story about giant tribbles.
Yes, giant tribbles. Go on, you know you want to.
Yes, giant tribbles. Go on, you know you want to.
April 22, 2012
Log Four is a collection of stories that are meant to be expanded off of the television shows from the animated series. I didn't really find them an expansion as much as a transcript which included action. I guess what I was hoping for was more detail to cover things that the short episodes didn't have the time for. What I got was what I remembered of the episodes. This isn't to say that these books aren't worth reading. For me, having and reading them is a matter of enjoying a tale told in the Trek style, if not in the complete form I had hoped for. Still an enjoyable read, brought back some good memories of watching with friends.
January 11, 2018
I never saw the cartoon but these stories in themselves are great, The Terratin Incident in particular is great fun
April 6, 2025
Alan Dean Foster's 1975 Star Trek Log Four 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.
In "The Terratin Incident," whose original screenplay was by Paul Schneider, the Enterprise follows a mysterious transmission in the old "Interset" code, "A standard deep-space communications code--but one that has been out of use for nearly two centuries" (1975 Ballantine paperback, page 16). Their destination is called, according to the message, "Terratin" (page 16), and is "a world of constant upheaval" that "resemble[s] a convulsed Mars," with an "atmosphere...in continual motion, as unstable and violent as the surface" (page 20). After being hit with "a non-communication beam of some potency," as Spock puts it "anxiously" (page 27), however, they discover that "[e]very dilithium crystal's smashed in the warp-drive circuitry" (page 31), and...well, crew members are beginning to shrink. This latter is no plot-spoiler, by the way, as the book's back cover blurb already tells us this. Now, I myself am not fond of either shrinking or growing in science fiction plots, because of the sloppiness of science usually entailed, and also because they strike me as obvious fears and fantasies, respectively, of childhood. So, yes, I rebelled against seeing the crew shrink to itty-witty size--"going down to one-sixteenth of a centimeter" height (page 60) objectionable enough for ya?--but I at least did like the fact they weren't losing any mass (page 44), "simply" contracting and getting denser. And by the end, with the decently faked-up science, I could pretty much tolerate the schtick.
"Time Trap," whose original screenplay was by Joyce Perry, takes us to another Bermuda Triangle of space--not to be confused with the one in "The Lorelei Signal" from Star Trek Log Two, by the way. Here, though, disappearances in "[t]he Delta Triangle," that "vast, unexplored sector of the galaxy in the outer reaches of the Federation's influence" that has claimed ships even "from ancient times" and "with no distinctions as to race" (page 101), come not from an interstellar honey-trap but from some unknown "natural phenomenon" (page 107). There are Klingons, and space battles, and "[a] graveyard of ships from every part of the galaxy" (page 115)--and I confess to being a sucker for any sort of Sargasso Sea of space--along with a wise council of more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger inhabitants of this "pocket in the fabric of normal space-time" (page 123). Can Kirk and his crew, and the Klingons as well, escape before the new decay of their dilithium crystals makes it impossible (page 126), or will they "come to accept," as "[a]ll do, eventually" (page 138), their exile? Really, 'tis quite enjoyable.
And speaking of Klingons, "More Tribbles, More Troubles," whose original screenplay was by David Gerrold, leads not only to the rescue of the "pudgy, falsely Falstaffian figure" of trader Cyrano Jones and another load of tribbles (page 186) but also an encounter with another load of nasty Klingons, this time armed with a new secret weapon which can leave a starship and its weapons "completely paralyzed" (page 178). Oh, yes-- And hanging over all this is the fact that a crop failure on Sherman's Planet will bring "widespread famine" with "as high as ten to eighteen percent fatalities" if the Enterprise cannot get there in time with a pair of "large cargo drones loaded with...hybrid seed" (page 171). It's another good one, with the seriousness interspersed with occasional comedy.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Four may begin with stories originally from a cartoon show, yet the adaptations are 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 a swift and 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.
In "The Terratin Incident," whose original screenplay was by Paul Schneider, the Enterprise follows a mysterious transmission in the old "Interset" code, "A standard deep-space communications code--but one that has been out of use for nearly two centuries" (1975 Ballantine paperback, page 16). Their destination is called, according to the message, "Terratin" (page 16), and is "a world of constant upheaval" that "resemble[s] a convulsed Mars," with an "atmosphere...in continual motion, as unstable and violent as the surface" (page 20). After being hit with "a non-communication beam of some potency," as Spock puts it "anxiously" (page 27), however, they discover that "[e]very dilithium crystal's smashed in the warp-drive circuitry" (page 31), and...well, crew members are beginning to shrink. This latter is no plot-spoiler, by the way, as the book's back cover blurb already tells us this. Now, I myself am not fond of either shrinking or growing in science fiction plots, because of the sloppiness of science usually entailed, and also because they strike me as obvious fears and fantasies, respectively, of childhood. So, yes, I rebelled against seeing the crew shrink to itty-witty size--"going down to one-sixteenth of a centimeter" height (page 60) objectionable enough for ya?--but I at least did like the fact they weren't losing any mass (page 44), "simply" contracting and getting denser. And by the end, with the decently faked-up science, I could pretty much tolerate the schtick.
"Time Trap," whose original screenplay was by Joyce Perry, takes us to another Bermuda Triangle of space--not to be confused with the one in "The Lorelei Signal" from Star Trek Log Two, by the way. Here, though, disappearances in "[t]he Delta Triangle," that "vast, unexplored sector of the galaxy in the outer reaches of the Federation's influence" that has claimed ships even "from ancient times" and "with no distinctions as to race" (page 101), come not from an interstellar honey-trap but from some unknown "natural phenomenon" (page 107). There are Klingons, and space battles, and "[a] graveyard of ships from every part of the galaxy" (page 115)--and I confess to being a sucker for any sort of Sargasso Sea of space--along with a wise council of more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger inhabitants of this "pocket in the fabric of normal space-time" (page 123). Can Kirk and his crew, and the Klingons as well, escape before the new decay of their dilithium crystals makes it impossible (page 126), or will they "come to accept," as "[a]ll do, eventually" (page 138), their exile? Really, 'tis quite enjoyable.
And speaking of Klingons, "More Tribbles, More Troubles," whose original screenplay was by David Gerrold, leads not only to the rescue of the "pudgy, falsely Falstaffian figure" of trader Cyrano Jones and another load of tribbles (page 186) but also an encounter with another load of nasty Klingons, this time armed with a new secret weapon which can leave a starship and its weapons "completely paralyzed" (page 178). Oh, yes-- And hanging over all this is the fact that a crop failure on Sherman's Planet will bring "widespread famine" with "as high as ten to eighteen percent fatalities" if the Enterprise cannot get there in time with a pair of "large cargo drones loaded with...hybrid seed" (page 171). It's another good one, with the seriousness interspersed with occasional comedy.
In any event, Alan Dean Foster's Star Trek Log Four may begin with stories originally from a cartoon show, yet the adaptations are 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 a swift and enjoyable 4.5- to 5-star read.
March 27, 2020
Two of the three stories are retreads. In the first story, the crew gets shrunk by a secret weapon from a miniature and unknown civilization. They go back to the well and make themselves big by resorting to the transporter logs.
The second story is somewhat more interesting. The Enterprise and Klingon ship get stuck in a time bubble. Many other ships have also been captured by it, and there is a civilization of many different races living on a world of spaceships, and resigned to remaining inside the bubble for the rest of their lives. The Enterprise and the Klingon ship can escape, but only by working together, which proves to be very difficult.
The last story is a retread of the Cyrano Jones and his tribbles.
The second story is somewhat more interesting. The Enterprise and Klingon ship get stuck in a time bubble. Many other ships have also been captured by it, and there is a civilization of many different races living on a world of spaceships, and resigned to remaining inside the bubble for the rest of their lives. The Enterprise and the Klingon ship can escape, but only by working together, which proves to be very difficult.
The last story is a retread of the Cyrano Jones and his tribbles.
December 23, 2020
I had never seen a TAS episode in my life, so this is my first venture into it. I wanted to at least touch on it in the books. For the most part this was a nice little short novel, which included 'The Terratin Incident', 'The Time Trap', 'More Tribbles, More Troubles'. The first of the three was expanded the most, which kindof made the others feel rushed. But, still neat little stories. For as much Trek as I've watched and read, it was nice to get 'new' (to me) stories.
June 11, 2022
Easy enough to read.
I didn't think much of The Terratin Incident.
The Tribble story just annoyed me that despite having encountered Tribbles before, no one considers trying to isolate or quarantine them as soon as they are on board, or a new lifeform?
Didn't mind the Time Trap story.
In the end, ab out what you expect: 3 very short stories based on characters that are already known.
I didn't think much of The Terratin Incident.
The Tribble story just annoyed me that despite having encountered Tribbles before, no one considers trying to isolate or quarantine them as soon as they are on board, or a new lifeform?
Didn't mind the Time Trap story.
In the end, ab out what you expect: 3 very short stories based on characters that are already known.
December 10, 2017
1976 "logs 1 thru 9" average grade B
2017 "Log 4" average grade C+
First two are too long.
C, C, A-
2017 "Log 4" average grade C+
First two are too long.
C, C, A-
December 7, 2018
I love The Animated Series, and these were fun and well-written adaptations of episodes. Nothing wildly outstanding, just good old Star Trek fun.
December 19, 2020
Very enjoyable. Some smart stuff here.
July 6, 2021
Cute, but sometimes logically inconsistent.
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.
November 9, 2024
The author, Alan Dean Foster (a prolific and well-known sci-fi writer in his own right) has done a good job of taking three of the 30-minute episodes of the STAR TREK: THE ANIMATED SERIES (the 22 episodes of which aired on tv in 1973-4) and weaving them into an interesting, continuous narrative of adventure featuring Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the original ST tv series crew. I thought the book was well worth my Trek time, despite an occasional out of character comment (usually by Mr. Spock). On the other hand, the following quotes made up for them:
Dr. McCoy (referring to a joint venture with the Klingons): "The idea of combining ship functions with that crew of backstabbers automatically sends my hand for a phaser".
Scotty to Captain Kirk: "It's just that everything seems to happen at once sometimes, sir. Tribbles on the ship, quinto-triticale in the corridors, Klingons in the quadrant...Why, sir, it's enough to ruin your whole day." LLAP! (Personal note: Since this was my 50th Star Trek book, shouldn't I get a commendation from Starfleet or a promotion to ensign or something??)
Dr. McCoy (referring to a joint venture with the Klingons): "The idea of combining ship functions with that crew of backstabbers automatically sends my hand for a phaser".
Scotty to Captain Kirk: "It's just that everything seems to happen at once sometimes, sir. Tribbles on the ship, quinto-triticale in the corridors, Klingons in the quadrant...Why, sir, it's enough to ruin your whole day." LLAP! (Personal note: Since this was my 50th Star Trek book, shouldn't I get a commendation from Starfleet or a promotion to ensign or something??)
April 14, 2014
I'm beginning to think I must have read at least some of these books when I was a kid, because these stories are very familiar, especially the Time Trap story in which the Enterprise is pulled into a zone full of derelict space craft. Then again, this idea has been done a fair number of times, and perhaps I'm remembering one of those other worlds in which this has been done. Regardless, I liked this book a lot. Yes, it's got the expected cheesiness, but it still has the charm that I love about the original series, and the crew always attempt to think their way through situations, rather than resorting to violence immediately.
March 10, 2022
3 Novellen nach Episoden aus der TV-Zeichentrickfilmserie. Anfangs machte es schon etwas Spaß, wieder mit Kirk & Co unterwegs zu sein. Allerdings bin ich kein ausgewiesener Star Trek-Fan, so dass ich die Unzulänglichkeiten wie Logiklöcher und Unglaubwürdigkeiten nicht übersehen mag.
Foster schreibt reichlich ausführlich, der Begriff "Zeilenschinderei" kam mir manchmal in den Sinn.
Als Fazit muss ich sagen, dass es kein allzugroßes Lesevergnügen war.
Foster schreibt reichlich ausführlich, der Begriff "Zeilenschinderei" kam mir manchmal in den Sinn.
Als Fazit muss ich sagen, dass es kein allzugroßes Lesevergnügen war.
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.
June 26, 2014
I loved Log Four and going to continue to read the series,After finishing the reading Log Four well I fell in love with those Tribbles. - "TRIBBLES" they adorable I have learned to hand weave Ttribbles they are so cute little yarn balls " OH MY They are CUTE- There Be TRIBBLES"
February 9, 2015
An okay volume in the series, but even considering the scripts Foster had to work with, this is definitely NOT his best work. What saves it is a bit of exposition on Lt. Arex and his people, and some good characterization.
July 27, 2010
Based on the Star Trek original series cartoon series. I thought they were pretty good. Good fun.
October 25, 2014
More novalizations of the animated Star Trek series.
July 2, 2013
Loved the original Star Trek.
August 9, 2022
Being shrunken, lost in the Bermuda's Triangle, trouble with tribbles again.
December 30, 2007
read 12.26.85
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May 20, 2010standard star trek novalization of animated shows
May 1, 2017
Another set of 3 stories adapted from television's Star Trek The Animated Series (TAS).
The lead story "The Terratin Incident" starts off good. There is some light background on one of the best TAS characters, Lt. Arex, the Edoan navigator. Interesting sidenote: Apparently, the Edoans are very musical. This is shown not only in the early pages of this story but also referenced in another Alan Dean Foster written Star Trek story. In the excellent "Crier in the Emptiness", a children's storybook and record from the mid 1970's, Fosters has an alien of pure sound invade the Enterprise. One of the crew, some random navigator named Connors, uses a keyboard called an "Edoan Elisiar" to communicate with the creature. Clearly a reference to Arex' race. Now I wonder why they didn't just use Arex as the character in the story (though they probably originally intended to and couldn't for some licensing reason).
Back to "The Terratin Incident"... The first half is actually pretty good and contains a lot of the filler that Foster obviously wrote to expand the story. But once the shrinking crew concept begins it does get a bit silly. Still it fares better in written form than its animated TV counterpart. Also, lest we forget, the original series had the crew shrink at least once ("Catspaw"), albeit briefly. The ending does get a bit implausible, however. (It IS science fiction.)
The other two stories are "Time Trap" and "More Tribbles, More Troubles" a sequel to the original series' tribbles episode. Both are good. However, I question why Foster gave "The Terratin Incident" nearly 100 pages, and relegated the better 2 stories to only 50 each. "Time Trap" would've gotten my vote for an expanded story out of these three.
Overall, a fun read with some interesting expanded details. Foster certainly elevates the material making a worthwhile lazy afternoon read.
The lead story "The Terratin Incident" starts off good. There is some light background on one of the best TAS characters, Lt. Arex, the Edoan navigator. Interesting sidenote: Apparently, the Edoans are very musical. This is shown not only in the early pages of this story but also referenced in another Alan Dean Foster written Star Trek story. In the excellent "Crier in the Emptiness", a children's storybook and record from the mid 1970's, Fosters has an alien of pure sound invade the Enterprise. One of the crew, some random navigator named Connors, uses a keyboard called an "Edoan Elisiar" to communicate with the creature. Clearly a reference to Arex' race. Now I wonder why they didn't just use Arex as the character in the story (though they probably originally intended to and couldn't for some licensing reason).
Back to "The Terratin Incident"... The first half is actually pretty good and contains a lot of the filler that Foster obviously wrote to expand the story. But once the shrinking crew concept begins it does get a bit silly. Still it fares better in written form than its animated TV counterpart. Also, lest we forget, the original series had the crew shrink at least once ("Catspaw"), albeit briefly. The ending does get a bit implausible, however. (It IS science fiction.)
The other two stories are "Time Trap" and "More Tribbles, More Troubles" a sequel to the original series' tribbles episode. Both are good. However, I question why Foster gave "The Terratin Incident" nearly 100 pages, and relegated the better 2 stories to only 50 each. "Time Trap" would've gotten my vote for an expanded story out of these three.
Overall, a fun read with some interesting expanded details. Foster certainly elevates the material making a worthwhile lazy afternoon read.
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September 11, 2017This review is also published on my blog.
Another day, another book of adapted cartoons. In February 1975 was published Alan Dean Foster's fourth book of Star Trek: The Animated Series novelizations, imaginatively titled Star Trek Log Four . This volume contains adaptations of "The Terratin Incident", "Time Trap", and "More Tribbles, More Troubles".
If there's one unifying theme to these stories, it's that they have very little plot to speak of. Just oops, here's a bit of trouble for five dozen pages, and then they turn the crank or whatever and the trouble is resolved. For a bit more detail...
The Terratin Incident
The Enterprise receives a strange transmission in a long-obsolete code, the only intelligible word of which being 'Terratin'. When they go to investigate, they are hit by a strange light, which destroys their dilithium crystals and--it turns out--causes the crew and all organic material on board to begin to shrink. They must find some way to fix things before they become too small to operate the ship.
This story is filled with interesting asides, satisfying bits of trivia about the characters, and an utter lack of developing plot. Just page after page of "and they got a bit smaller, so they had to rig up an extra-long pole to reach the coffee pot", until finally they get to the end of the story and things are explained, and they solve the problem by sending everyone through the transporter to return them to their natural size.
Time Trap
Exploring a weird section of space, the "Delta Triangle", a futuristic analog of the Bermuda Triangle, the Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon ship which promptly vanishes. Then they escape from that ship's compatriots by following it through a pothole in space to a pocket dimension called Elysia where, for some reason, people don't age and dilithium quickly degrades to uselessness (unreliable stuff, apparently).
This is another story in which there is precious little plot. The Enterprise gets stuck, so they glue it to the Klingon ship for an extra boost, and the problem is solved. The people living in Elysia exist pretty much solely for the sake of communicating to Kirk a last minute warning about a Klingon plot.
More Tribbles, More Troubles
The Enterprise, escorting ships carrying grain, encounters a Klingon ship chasing a small Federation vessel. They beam the pilot aboard just as his ship is destroyed, and what do you know, it's Cyrano Jones, out selling tribbles again. This time, instead of reproducing rapidly, they just grow to immense proportions. Oh, but actually they still breed explosively, too. So... yeah. Tribbles, again. They beam them over to the Klingon ship, again.
In Summary
This is just not a good selection of stories. If it'd been just one or even two of them that were very light on plot, it'd be bearable, but for all three to be so mindless? It's pretty bad. The writing is as good as usual, though, and Arex gets a fair bit of 'screen time' throughout, which is nice. The show could really have done with some more focus on the non-human (and non-vulcan) crew, so it's good to see the novelizations correcting that. Even so, I wouldn't recommend reading this one unless you're a completionist.
Another day, another book of adapted cartoons. In February 1975 was published Alan Dean Foster's fourth book of Star Trek: The Animated Series novelizations, imaginatively titled Star Trek Log Four . This volume contains adaptations of "The Terratin Incident", "Time Trap", and "More Tribbles, More Troubles".
If there's one unifying theme to these stories, it's that they have very little plot to speak of. Just oops, here's a bit of trouble for five dozen pages, and then they turn the crank or whatever and the trouble is resolved. For a bit more detail...
The Terratin Incident
The Enterprise receives a strange transmission in a long-obsolete code, the only intelligible word of which being 'Terratin'. When they go to investigate, they are hit by a strange light, which destroys their dilithium crystals and--it turns out--causes the crew and all organic material on board to begin to shrink. They must find some way to fix things before they become too small to operate the ship.
This story is filled with interesting asides, satisfying bits of trivia about the characters, and an utter lack of developing plot. Just page after page of "and they got a bit smaller, so they had to rig up an extra-long pole to reach the coffee pot", until finally they get to the end of the story and things are explained, and they solve the problem by sending everyone through the transporter to return them to their natural size.
Time Trap
Exploring a weird section of space, the "Delta Triangle", a futuristic analog of the Bermuda Triangle, the Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon ship which promptly vanishes. Then they escape from that ship's compatriots by following it through a pothole in space to a pocket dimension called Elysia where, for some reason, people don't age and dilithium quickly degrades to uselessness (unreliable stuff, apparently).
This is another story in which there is precious little plot. The Enterprise gets stuck, so they glue it to the Klingon ship for an extra boost, and the problem is solved. The people living in Elysia exist pretty much solely for the sake of communicating to Kirk a last minute warning about a Klingon plot.
More Tribbles, More Troubles
The Enterprise, escorting ships carrying grain, encounters a Klingon ship chasing a small Federation vessel. They beam the pilot aboard just as his ship is destroyed, and what do you know, it's Cyrano Jones, out selling tribbles again. This time, instead of reproducing rapidly, they just grow to immense proportions. Oh, but actually they still breed explosively, too. So... yeah. Tribbles, again. They beam them over to the Klingon ship, again.
In Summary
This is just not a good selection of stories. If it'd been just one or even two of them that were very light on plot, it'd be bearable, but for all three to be so mindless? It's pretty bad. The writing is as good as usual, though, and Arex gets a fair bit of 'screen time' throughout, which is nice. The show could really have done with some more focus on the non-human (and non-vulcan) crew, so it's good to see the novelizations correcting that. Even so, I wouldn't recommend reading this one unless you're a completionist.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews