Star Trek: The Classic Episodes, Volume 1

Star Trek: The Classic Episodes #1

by James Blish, D.C. Fontana (Introduction), J.A. Lawrence (Foreword)

In the twenty-five years since it premiered on network television, bringing in the planets of the Federation and the voyages of the Starship Enterprise into America's living rooms and the national consciousness, Star Trek has become a worldwide phenomenon, crossing generations and cultures in its enduring universal appeal. Now, in celebration of Star Trek's twenty-fifth anniversary, here are James Blish's classic adaptations of Star Trek's dazzling first season scripts.

And there's more::
- A new introduction written especially for this omnibus by one of Star Trek's creators, D.C. Fontana
- Blish's original prefaces to each volume, annotated for this edition
- Production credits for each episode
- Production stills accompanying each story

Explore the final frontier with science fiction's most well-known and beloved captain, crew, and starship, with twenty-seven tales of high adventure, including The Naked Time, Shore Leave, The Squire of Gothos, Space Seed, and the City on the Edge of Forever.

Genres: Star Trek, Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Star Trek Original Series, Short Stories, Adventure

317 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published September 1, 1991

About the author

James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling Jr.

In the late 1930's to the early 1940's, Blish was a member of the Futurians.

Blish trained as a biologist at Rutgers and Columbia University, and spent 1942–1944 as a medical technician in the U.S. Army. After the war he became the science editor for the Pfizer pharmaceutical company. His first published story appeared in 1940, and his writing career progressed until he gave up his job to become a professional writer.

He is credited with coining the term gas giant, in the story "Solar Plexus" as it appeared in the anthology Beyond Human Ken, edited by Judith Merril. (The story was originally published in 1941, but that version did not contain the term; Blish apparently added it in a rewrite done for the anthology, which was first published in 1952.)

Blish was married to the literary agent Virginia Kidd from 1947 to 1963.

From 1962 to 1968, he worked for the Tobacco Institute.

Between 1967 and his death from lung cancer in 1975, Blish became the first author to write short story collections based upon the classic TV series Star Trek. In total, Blish wrote 11 volumes of short stories adapted from episodes of the 1960s TV series, as well as an original novel, Spock Must Die! in 1970 — the first original novel for adult readers based upon the series (since then hundreds more have been published). He died midway through writing Star Trek 12; his wife, J.A. Lawrence, completed the book, and later completed the adaptations in the volume Mudd's Angels.

Blish lived in Milford, Pennsylvania at Arrowhead until the mid-1960s. In 1968, Blish emigrated to England, and lived in Oxford until his death in 1975. He is buried in Holywell Cemetery, Oxford, near the grave of Kenneth Grahame.

His name in Greek is Τζέημς Μπλις"

Reviews

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a real hoot and trip down memory lane - of the programme rather than the comic. Pretty dated and a little goes a long way but worth 4 stars for entertainment value.

[SamB · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable - nicely and uncomplicatedly adapted from what were mostly some very good episodes. Interesting to see some of the changes, some of which were Blish's doing to simplify and shorten a narrative, others having come from the fact he used early script versions as his source material. I have the collections for the second and third seasons, but I don't expect them to be as consistently strong.

[Ian Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to give this collection four stars for purely nostalgic reasons, but reason prevailed. Mr Blish is a wonderful writer but even he struggles with the condensing of these scripts to the length of a short story. It shows particularly in the treatment of episodes like “Balance Of Terror” which bears only a slight resemblance to the screened gem that it was. I know that he was also only working with pre-production scripts which are often changed a lot before they are screened but there are some scenes, mostly at the beginning of the story that are very obviously hideously abridged to save space.

When he gets it right, though, he soars…

[cauldronofevil · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think at this point I’ve read most of the primary early missions of the Enterprise so now it’s on to the episodes themselves.

I know these episode write-ups don’t have a great reputation and that’s largely deserved, but if you remember reading them from when there was literally no other way unless they were on in front of you, then you have to give them credit for what they are.

The introduction is 12 pages by D.C. Fontana and is a fascinating look at her experience along with some revelations about the early years of Star Trek.

The is about 3 pages from James Blish, saying mostly “I cannot give you a job writing Star Trek”.

This is one of the reasons I HATE the Q&A portions of convention appearances. They are inevitably flooded with “Can you get me a job?” questions!

In the end, discipline triumphed while technology failed all around them.

Humans cannot survive if a race of true Espers like me are born.

Something I’ve always wondered that wasn’t really explored in the ‘Republic’ Star Trek book was whether or not it was Gary’s personality that made him dangerous with so much power. Would that have happened to anyone? Or was there something in his ego that made him especially dangerous with it.

Dehner obviously didn’t go the same way, but she was further behind in evolution than he was and even she hints that you can’t imagine what it’s like until you have the power.

Well, it was pretty straightforward. Not much was added. So I’ll give it 3 stars. I assume I’ll come back to this book to read other episodes.

[Cheryl]

I'm reading through the ST:TOS that I 'inherited' from my brother. I don't plan to try to rate them, and I may not even have comments for some of them.

This one is making me realize that if I want to refresh my memory before going on to the original stories inspired by the show, I need to watch the show... these adaptations are from the scripts, and are not quite in order, and are short. I guess I'll still read all three Blish omnibuses, but fortunately I can watch the shows because OKC library has the DVDs.

Bookdarts:
A favorite fan had the name George LaForge.
I'd like to read more by Adrian Spies, author of *Miri*.
*The Galileo Seven* might have been the first episode in which it is revealed that Spock and Kirk will become friends, and maybe the first lifted eyebrow.
Arena seems to my memory as being so far changed from Fredric Brown's brilliant story that the accreditation should be 'inspired by.' I'll have to reread.
Good Scrabble word: ylem.
Khan's entourage was about 1/5 women? That makes no sense. Def. check the actual show for that.

[Tommy Verhaegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of short stories (about 20 pages each) that very closely follow the original screen episodes.
James Blish is a great writer so really worth reading, especially for the fans of those first episodes.
It are not scripts but reworked novels, they really represent added value.
Even though it is a thick volume, the relatively small size of the chapters (= episodes) make for easy reading and allow to lay the book aside when needed withoout regrets.

[Daniel Fogliarine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Além de proporcionar a oportunidade de revisitar, de uma maneira mais detalhada, estes episódios clássicos o livro também é muito bom ao fornecer curiosidades e informações sobre o processo de criação por trás dos episódios, assim como sobre os bastidores dos primórdios da série, e até um panorama sobre como funcionava a indústria televisiva dos Estados Unidos na época.

[Christopher Dodds · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories from season one were well written in book form but some of my personal story arcs from some of the episodes were missing but I understand that they couldn't fit it all in one volume. Overall it was a great read.v

[julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

some episodes (or parts of them) were underwhelming and some were amazing so kinda hard to rate BUT IT WAS SO FUN ANYWAYS LEONARD MCCOY I LOVE YOU

[Rob Frampton]

DNF

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Goodreads rating: 3 out of 5 (I liked it!)

I’ve been a fan of the original Star Trek since I first saw it as a kid in the 70’s. My earliest memory of the show is “Arena”, one of the better known episodes, in which Kirk is forced to fight a duel with a reptilian alien. For a 4-year-old it was kind of scary and intense…and I was forever hooked.

But let’s face it, Star Trek was not great science fiction. There was a whole lot that was just plain silly in a typical Star Trek script (and I’m not referring to the low-tech, low-budget special effects). I won’t bother you with a diatribe on how hokey and unbelievable the plots could be, but even die hard fans of the series readily admit that the show was full of cheese.

The quality of its stories, however, was not what made us love Star Trek…Star Trek was great because of great ideas. The premise of the show was fantastic – Earth, 300 years in the future, as a member of a federation of planets with a fleet of starships on a mission of exploration. The Enterprise – so beautiful and majestic and nautical, so much thought having gone into its design and operations. The technology – so incredibly cool, and who had ever imagined things like this before? Like beaming down to a planet instead of landing a spaceship every time…a stroke of pure genius.

Star Trek was also great because of great characters, and in fact, even with all of its “great ideas”, I don’t believe the show would have succeeded without them. Honestly, I could sit through almost any amount of cheesiness as long as I got to watch the chemistry between those endearing personalities.

And that brings me to the crux of this review.

I enjoyed reading these adaptations by James Blish not because they are necessarily the greatest science fiction. And for that matter, not because his writing is particularly engaging; these are fairly bare bones, straight-from-the-script versions of the episodes. No, I enjoyed reading them simply because I enjoy Star Trek. I relish any opportunity to escape my mundane life and enter through my imagination into that wonderful universe for a while.

A couple of items in closing –

As other reviewers have pointed out, some of these adaptations differ from the actual episodes, most of the time only in small ways but in a few cases by quite a bit. This was because James Blish was given the original shooting scripts to work from. Scripts often get fairly reworked during the course of a production, and the final product can have major differences. However, this impacted my reading enjoyment in no way whatsoever.

I mentioned before that these adaptations are pretty bare bones. But to be fair, it’s not James Blish’s fault; he was constrained by the editor to keep each story to a certain length (which is usually somewhere between 20-30 pages). I feel he did an admirable job under the circumstances, even providing some insight here and there into the inner workings of the characters. Personally, I don’t really need tremendous detail to enjoy a story. In fact, many times I think details dilute what I feel is the main point of reading fiction – exercising the imagination to see and hear a story in your own way. Let’s just say that as I read these stories I found plenty there on the page for my imagination to run with and cause the crew of the Enterprise and their adventures to come to life.

By the way, ever since I first read it as a kid, one adaptation in this first season has always stood out to me, “Charlie’s Law” (called “Charlie X” in the series). James Blish writes a heart wrenching ending…and the last line is haunting.

[Norm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first of a 3-volume set, which neatly re-organizes the original 12 Bantam paperbacks, one book per season. These stories, most of them written by James Blish (with a few written by his wife, after his passing) are straight-forward, stripped-down adaptations of the original episodes, although Blish gradually fleshed them out a bit as he went along. Some readers may find them too sparse, but I like them for just that reason.


Production notes and a photograph accompany each story. There is also an introduction by D.C. Fontana, one of the guiding lights behind the original series.

If you like the original Star Trek series, these 3 volumes can be a pleasant way to "relive" the stories, especially if you are currently unable to watch them.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an omnibus edition of Blish's novelizations/storyizations of the original Star Trek episodes. Sometimes they are slightly different from the final episode since they were written from shooting scripts as I understand. Although I enjoyed them, it's because of the tie in with the TV series episodes. The writing here is fairly workmanlike and this is really bare bones kind of work.

There are 3 volumes of this omnibus edition.

[Michael Hanscom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blish's adaptations of the original episodes are an entertaining read, in large part because they were adapted not from the finished episodes, but from in-progress scripts, and often veer from the story as we know it; sometimes subtly (characters with different names), sometimes wildly (entirely different resolutions). An interesting peek into the early days of Star Trek, when much was still in flux.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read these stories when I was 11 and these are what got me into Star trek. They are the stories of the original episodes and they are so much better to read than to watch. You are not distracted by naff special effects, your own imagination has no limits and so the stories really come alive. I would recommend these books to any Si-Fi fan, they are brilliant!

[Curtiss · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first 4 of James Blish's STar Trek episode sets, gathered into one mammoth 25th Anniversary Volume.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories based on the first draft of the shooting scripts of the first year of TOS. It is interesting what made the taping and what did not.

[Jasminkaa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing book 🤩🤩