Are the Blish novelizations canon?

[Maurice]

IMHO some of you guys are a bit too hard on the "science" of "Operation: Annihilate".

Bones' scripted stupidity aside, the fact that the neural parasites are sensitive to UV radiation is hardly preposterous. I assume they hide in the shadows because the UV that gets to the planet's surface is enough to be uncomfortable, but not deadly. That orbiting satellites could generate enough UV to be greater than that received by the sun is fairly preposterous, however, let alone that it would get into all the nooks and crannies the creatures hid in. Some kind of fictional radiation that could go through buildings and stuff would have been preferable, but then we're heading down the road of technobabble problem solved by technobabble solution.

 

[Christopher]

Then you should thank Steven W. Carabatsos because Blish's adaptation was based on Carabatsos's early draft (1/24/67), missent to Blish.

Well, yes, that was mentioned in the post immediately before the one you quoted, so I didn't need to restate it. Also, I assume everyone here understands how novelizations work.

the fact that the neural parasites are sensitive to UV radiation is hardly preposterous.

Which is the one part that I did not criticize.

 

[MAGolding]

IMHO some of you guys are a bit too hard on the "science" of "Operation: Annihilate".

Bones' scripted stupidity aside, the fact that the neural parasites are sensitive to UV radiation is hardly preposterous. I assume they hide in the shadows because the UV that gets to the planet's surface is enough to be uncomfortable, but not deadly. That orbiting satellites could generate enough UV to be greater than that received by the sun is fairly preposterous, however, let alone that it would get into all the nooks and crannies the creatures hid in. Some kind of fictional radiation that could go through buildings and stuff would have been preferable, but then we're heading down the road of technobabble problem solved by technobabble solution.

I am sensitive to UV radiation, though not so much as the parasites..

 

[Warped9]

I loved the Blish books back in the day. As others have said it was a way to get back into the Trek universe between aired episodes even if they were reruns. Occasionally little tidbits of backstory or additional elements would be found to add more texture to the TOS universe, such as 40 Eridani being the location of Vulcan. For a young teenager this was next to gospel as far as Trek was concerned.

My favourite bit was found in his adaptation of “Balance Of Terror” in Star Trek 1 where he fleshed out a bit of the Earth/Romulan war. He had the war lasting twenty-five years and fought with primitive ships (by TOS standards). And for decades nothing in subsequent series or films contradicted that backstory until ENT. Suffice to say I wasn’t the only TOS fan royally pissed when ENT contradicted how many of us envisioned the Trek universe in the 22nd century.

Given I don’t like or bother with ENT anyway (for a lot of reasons) I just ignore it and stick with the head canon I’ve had all these decades.

 

[Phaser Two]

How is Spock Must Die? I have read a small number of TOS novels over the years and enjoyed them, but for some reason never checked this one out.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Yes and no. As @Harvey has said elsewhere, Blish often went his own way and changed names and events, often differing from what the scripts said .

On occasion, Blish's adaptations shined a light on the televised performances going in certain directions. For example, in his version of "The Omega Glory," Tracey is openly racist toward Spock, with Kirk having to defending his friend, while in the episode, its more implied and opportunistic when Tracey used Spock's Vulcan appearance to suggest he was Satan to the Yangs. I suspect the racist dialogue was in one of the early drafts (like Lt. Raintree, who became Galloway in the same episode), and may have influenced some of the reactions Tracey shot in Spock's direction in the episode.

 

[Warped9]

How is Spock Must Die? I have read a small number of TOS novels over the years and enjoyed them, but for some reason never checked this one out.

My favourite Trek novel.

 

[Maurice]

On occasion, Blish's adaptations shined a light on the televised performances going in certain directions. For example, in his version of "The Omega Glory," Tracey is openly racist toward Spock, with Kirk having to defending his friend, while in the episode, its more implied and opportunistic when Tracey used Spock's Vulcan appearance to suggest he was Satan to the Yangs. I suspect the racist dialogue was in one of the early drafts (like Lt. Raintree, who became Galloway in the same episode), and may have influenced some of the reactions Tracey shot in Spock's direction in the episode.

That sounds like the 2nd pilot version of "The Omega Glory" in which Tracey was very dismissive of Spock.

 

[Warped9]

How is Spock Must Die? I have read a small number of TOS novels over the years and enjoyed them, but for some reason never checked this one out.

It’s quite different than the novels that would follow from Pocket Books particularly during the past decades. When SMD was written there wasn’t even TAS so there is no connective tissue to all the continuity that followed with the films and subsequent series.

It really has that beyond the frontier feel to it as the Enterprise is hundreds of light years beyond Federation territory. The space war ship combat scenes feel more raw and more SF like than what would come later.

Indeed it feels more like a science fiction story as well as a Trek story and more successfully than TMP. But beware that it doesn’t fit the continuity later established given how Blish deals with the Klingons.

 

[Phaser Two]

It’s quite different than the novels that would follow from Pocket Books particularly during the past decades. When SMD was written there wasn’t even TAS so there is no connective tissue to all the continuity that followed with the films and subsequent series.

It really has that beyond the frontier feel to it as the Enterprise is hundreds of light years beyond Federation territory. The space war ship combat scenes feel more raw and more SF like than what would come later.

Indeed it feels more like a science fiction story as well as a Trek story and more successfully than TMP. But beware that it doesn’t fit the continuity later established given how Blish deals with the Klingons.

Good lord, I am the opposite of a fan of how the Klingons were handled after Star Trek and TAS. Their development into Viking Space Bikers in TNG was one of the most atrocious developments in the franchise. Naturally, DISCO doubled down in a horrible new way with its own awful take.

Sounds like I need to buy a copy of SMD! Thanks a lot for the detailed response!

 

[Warped9]

I wrote a followup story to SMD from the perspective of the Klingons. And I managed to get it signed by John Colicis.

 

[Mysterion]

Good lord, I am the opposite of a fan of how the Klingons were handled after Star Trek and TAS. Their development into Viking Space Bikers in TNG was one of the most atrocious developments in the franchise. Naturally, DISCO doubled down in a horrible new way with its own awful take.

Too bad we didn't get the Phase II series and John Lucas' Kitumba two-parter which would have moved the klingons a different direction than TNG did.

 

[1001001]

Good lord, I am the opposite of a fan of how the Klingons were handled after Star Trek and TAS. Their development into Viking Space Bikers in TNG was one of the most atrocious developments in the franchise. Naturally, DISCO doubled down in a horrible new way with its own awful take.

 

[fireproof78]

Indeed it feels more like a science fiction story as well as a Trek story and more successfully than TMP. But beware that it doesn’t fit the continuity later established given how Blish deals with the Klingons.

Sounds like a worthy read.

Good lord, I am the opposite of a fan of how the Klingons were handled after Star Trek and TAS. Their development into Viking Space Bikers in TNG was one of the most atrocious developments in the franchise. Naturally, DISCO doubled down in a horrible new way with its own awful take.

I felt that DISCO was closer to TOS than TNG ever was so...eh???

 

[Kor]

Isn't SMD the one where the Organians condemn the Klingons to a thousand years without space travel?

Kor

 

[mb22]

Isn't SMD the one where the Organians condemn the Klingons to a thousand years without space travel?

Kor

 

[Warped9]

In Trek it sounds impossible to not have the Klingons. So there might be a way to work around the Organian exile. TMP showed us different Klingons and for a long time fans rationalized there were more than one race of Klingons just as there are more than one race of humans. So the Klingons of the TOS era were then in as ascendency and later the TNG type Klingons were in control. So perhaps the less genocidal Klingons finally put down the more agressive—a relative term for Klingons—types. And along with the Federation lobbying that the Organian sentence was too extreme manage to get the Klingons a reprieve of sorts after a few years. In that time Klingon society realigns itself more like the TNG types.

Okay, it’s reaching, but it’s no worse than some Earth scientist being the cause for Klingon deformities that make them look more human.

 

[fireproof78]

TMP should us different Klingons and for a long time fans rationalized there were more than one race of Klingons just as there are more than one race of humans.

Honestly, this wasn't one of the harder rationalizations for me to make.

 

[Warped9]

Honestly, this wasn't one of the harder rationalizations for me to make.

Yeah, it was a pretty easy out.

 

[MAGolding]

Why do people forget about the mad, crazy BBC order? And if there is another TV station out there that continually changed the tun of episodes I'd love to hear about them!
JB

Speaking about the mad, crazy BBC order, can you or someone point out where I can find a listing of TOS episodes in the mad, crazy BBC order? I might as well add BBC order to my list of potential viewing orders.

I just want to point out that at least The "Vegan Hegemony" appeared in a poster timeline thingie and got a bit of an expanded explanation.

Do you mean in the earliest TOS timeline that I know of, in Star Trek: An Analysis of a Phenomenon in Science Fiction, 1968? Or do you mean some other source that some of us here might be interested in learning more about?

That was the Vegan Tyranny. They were offscreen alien villains in Blish's Cities in Flight novels.

They were alien villains according to the legends of the interstellar society that Cities in Flight happened in, about a millennium after the Earth-Vega Wars. Naturally the Earth culture claimed that the Vegans had been the villians, but the readers are given very little evidence to decide anything about how villainous the Vegans might have been.

And the other day, reading these comments, I had an idea. In a juvenile novel I once read,The Secret of the Martian Moons, 1955, by Donald A. Wollheim, there was an advanced civilization of people very similar to, but not identical with, Earth humans on the planets of the star Vega. Thousands of years before the story opens, the Vegans detected an enormous fleet of spaceship approaching their star system, and fled in terror in giant spaceships roughly the size of the Vegan Orbital Fortress. The Vegan Orbital Fortress was featured in Blish's Earthman, Come Home, 1955, which combined stories originally published in 1950 and 1953 which were probably familiar to science fiction fan and writer Wollheim.

And the thought has occurred to me the other day that possibly parts of the plot of The Secret of the Martian Moons might be Wollheim's take on the story of the Vegan Wars from Cities in Flight.

The Vegans were never described in any scene in Cities in Flight. But the reader can guess that they were not described as looking like Gorn, or Horta, or the real forms of Sylvia and Korob, or Tholians or anything that non human. There is a scene in one story where John Amalfi, who looks a little unusual, is asked if he's a Vegan. And in another story Amalfi thinks that only 11 non human civilizations have ever been discovered, unless you counted the Vegans. Humans considered the Vegans nonhuman, but the other nonhuman cultures considered the Vegans to be Human.

There is one scene somewhere in Cities in Flight where Earth's victory is credited to the Vegans using computers to plan their strategy and so being out thought by Earthmen. And some Star Trek fans got the wrong idea from that.

According to Memory Beta:

The Vegan Tyranny was an interstellar political entity controlled by the native Vega IX in the Alpha Quadrant. The Tyranny once controlled a vast area of space, however by the time of the Federation the Vegans had gone extinct, and subsequently little was known about them; some speculated that they may have been a cybernetic race. (ST reference: The Worlds of the Federation)

When the USS Enterprise was accidentally sent back in time to 1969, Montgomery Scott reminded James T. Kirk that the Vegan Tyranny wholly dominated space outside the local group of stars, and therefore it was unsafe for the Enterprise to go there. (TOS - Star Trek 2 novelization: Tomorrow is Yesterday)

https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Vegan_Tyranny