Star Trek 3 - James Blish

Title: Star Trek 3
Author: James Blish
Genre: Science-Fiction
Published: 1969
Formats: Hardback/Paperback


Available at:
Amazon
Amazon UK

Review:
“Star Trek 3” by James Blish is the third collection of short stories which includes seven adaptations of Star Trek Original Series scripts.

"The Trouble with Tribbles"
"The Last Gunfight" (an adaptation of "Spectre of the Gun")
"The Doomsday Machine"
"Assignment: Earth"
"Mirror, Mirror"
"Friday's Child”
"Amok Time"

I have to admit that it is getting quite hard for me to review these collections without sounding like I am just repeating what I have said before but in the end what is true for one appears to be true for others. Basically, the level to which they entertain a reader is proportionate to how enjoyable the original episodes were. Luckily this collection contains a few decent episodes which meant that reading it was an enjoyable enough diversion for an afternoon.

As always there are a few changes to the stories as Blish tended to work with earlier scripts that were different to the final product and trying to spot these differences can be quite an entertaining experience. They don’t tend to overly affect the impact of the episode but it was quite nice to see the stories being told in a different way.

A slight negative is that the dramatic impact and tension was lost in several of the stories. For example, “The Doomsday Machine” was put across in a rather stale manner and the dramatic impact Kirk’s death in “Amok Time” was lost a little as the story was told from his viewpoint. It wasn’t a major issue but as these were some of the more enjoyable episodes used in the collection it was a shame to see them put across in a manner which wasn’t as strong as it could be.

Overall, Blish continues to do a competent job at adapting the various episodes but outside of nostalgic Star Trek fans I doubt they are going to appeal to many people.