Barnes & Noble collection of the James Blish TOS adaptations

[JonnyQuest037]

I just picked up this volume on impulse at my local Barnes & Noble tonight. Somehow I entirely missed this compilation back in 2016 (as well as the BBS's two threads on the subject), but I'm glad I've got my hands on it now. It's a good-looking black leather-bound hardcover collection with the Starfleet delta on the front, and an overhead diagram of the Enterprise on the back. The inside front & back covers have some nice glossy photos of the characters and the ship. It contains 45 of the 79 TOS novelizations that James Blish wrote back in the 1960s, along with an introduction, "Star Trek in the Real World," written by Norman Spinrad for Bantam books back in 1991. Quite a steal for only $25!

The list of episodes contained in the volume (Courtesy of Dayton Ward and Therin of Andor in the previous threads):

Season 1

The Menagerie

Where No Man Has Gone Before
Charlie's Law (Charlie X)
The Naked Time
The Enemy Within
What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Dagger of the Mind
The Conscience of the King
Balance of Terror
The Galileo Seven
Arena
Tomorrow Is Yesterday
Court Martial
The Return of the Archons
Space Seed
A Taste of Armageddon
This Side of Paradise
The Devil in the Dark
Errand of Mercy
The City on the Edge of Forever
Operation Annihilate

Season 2

Amok Time
Who Mourns for Adonais?
The Changeling
Mirror, Mirror
The Apple
The Doomsday Machine
Metamorphosis
Journey to Babel
The Deadly Years
The Trouble With Tribbles
A Piece of the Action
The Immunity Syndrome
By Any Other Name
The Ultmate Computer
Assignment: Earth

Season 3

The Enterprise Incident
The Day of the Dove
For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
The Tholian Web
Wink of an Eye
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
The Cloudminders
All Our Yesterdays

I've heard for years that the Blish adaptations are great, so I'm looking forward to finally reading several of them for myself. If you have a B&N store near you and are interested in getting a copy, I'd recommend checking them out. Once I finally crack the covers, I'll post what I think in this thread (and/or link to my thoughts posted elsewhere).

 

[Reanok]

I got this book as a Christmas gift I really like it alot .The stories are really interesting.

 

[Mysterion]

I'd really like to see a second volume collecting the remaining episodes and his stand-along novel Spock Must Die!

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I'd really like to see a second volume collecting the remaining episodes and his stand-along novel Spock Must Die!

Yeah, I didn't realize that it didn't have all of Blish's adaptations until I got it home. I was wondering why I wasn't seeing The Unreal McCoy (Blish's version of "The Man Trap") in the table of contents!

Hmm... Should I read them the stories in the order they appear in the book, or skip around? I think I'll skip around.

 

[David cgc]

I'd really like to see a second volume collecting the remaining episodes and his stand-along novel Spock Must Die!

I'm not sure how likely that is, since they specifically picked "the good ones" for this release. It might be a harder sell to have a handsome hardbound edition of everyone's least-favorite
TOS episodes.

 

[Mysterion]

I'm not sure how likely that is, since they specifically picked "the good ones" for this release. It might be a harder sell to have a handsome hardbound edition of everyone's least-favorite
TOS episodes.

Well, you just need to sell it as the second half of having a complete set - grab all of us anal-retentive completists that way.

 

[GNDN18]

Yeah, I didn't realize that it didn't have all of Blish's adaptations until I got it home. I was wondering why I wasn't seeing The Unreal McCoy (Blish's version of "The Man Trap") in the table of contents!

Hmm... Should I read them the stories in the order they appear in the book, or skip around? I think I'll skip around.

I’d read them in stardate order.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I'd really like to see a second volume collecting the remaining episodes and his stand-along novel Spock Must Die!

And Mudd’s Angels.

 

[Desert Kris]

I went back and forth about getting it; it is very nice looking and sturdy. But I kept holding back because it's not all the episode novelizations. Then one day I was at a Half Price books store and found 3 volume paperback set that collected and reprinted them in the early 1990's...they were in really good condition, too. I had been toying with the idea of seriously looking for those exact editions on Amazon, but then there they were. I grabbed 'em without blinking.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I went back and forth about getting it; it is very nice looking and sturdy. But I kept holding back because it's not all the episode novelizations. Then one day I was at a Half Price books store and found 3 volume paperback set that collected and reprinted them in the early 1990's...they were in really good condition, too. I had been toying with the idea of seriously looking for those exact editions on Amazon, but then there they were. I grabbed 'em without blinking.

These compilations exclude the Mudd episodes, but you can pick them up in a copy of Mudd’s Angels (later retitled Mudd’s Enterprise).

 

[JonnyQuest037]

I’d read them in stardate order.

Nah. I don't even believe in watching the series that way. Production order all the way!

 

[Ssosmcin]

I think I have the Blish books four times over (I just picked up a mint set - with the second cover of TMOST and the original World of Star Trek - last night for $35), not to mention the four Star Trek Reader volumes. If B&N maed it a complete volume, I'd get it. Maybe it it comes down in price one year...

 

[Desert Kris]

These compilations exclude the Mudd episodes, but you can pick them up in a copy of Mudd’s Angels (later retitled Mudd’s Enterprise).

So this was an interesting wrinkle, I never noticed that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It really seemed like those volumes had all the episode novelizations...is it just the Mudd ones that are excluded? I wonder why leave those out, when all the others are included? Baffling.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Maybe it it comes down in price one year...

It's a 700-page book that's being sold for $25. That's less than 0.036 cents a page. The book contains 44 stories, which is a grand total of 57 cents per story.

How much less do you expect it to be?

 

[Ssosmcin]

B&N puts stuff in their clearance racks constantly. And since I have these many, many times over, knocking it down to $15 would be great. Otherwise, I’ll chug along just fine without it.

 

[Daddy Todd]

So this was an interesting wrinkle, I never noticed that. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. It really seemed like those volumes had all the episode novelizations...is it just the Mudd ones that are excluded? I wonder why leave those out, when all the others are included? Baffling.

Just the Mudd episodes. It seems they were excluded because Mudd’s Angels was a real novelization, and some extra material was added (well, more than half the book, really) to stitch it into a quasi-novel. Pulling the individual episodes out and plopping them in with the rest of season 1 and season 2 might’ve been confusing.

I consider Spock Must Die! and Mudd’s Angels to be necessary components of the Blish novelizations. They shouldn’t be skipped. In fact, rather than read the later compilations, I’d read the original versions in the order they were published: Star Trek through Star Trek 3, then SMD!, then Star Trek 4-12, then MA.

 

[Starbreaker]

I got this book as a Christmas gift, too. The preface is really interesting.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

B&N puts stuff in their clearance racks constantly. And since I have these many, many times over, knocking it down to $15 would be great. Otherwise, I’ll chug along just fine without it.

It was already on a discount table when I found it.

And you really don't need to tell me about how B&N operates. I worked in one for three years.

 

[Desert Kris]

Just the Mudd episodes. It seems they were excluded because Mudd’s Angels was a real novelization, and some extra material was added (well, more than half the book, really) to stitch it into a quasi-novel. Pulling the individual episodes out and plopping them in with the rest of season 1 and season 2 might’ve been confusing.

I consider Spock Must Die! and Mudd’s Angels to be necessary components of the Blish novelizations. They shouldn’t be skipped. In fact, rather than read the later compilations, I’d read the original versions in the order they were published: Star Trek through Star Trek 3, then SMD!, then Star Trek 4-12, then MA.

How intriguing! I like Harry Mudd but I'm not a war-wacky fan about him. I always roll my eyes about the Into Darkness easter egg, but I really enjoyed his return in some of the Discovery episodes. Mudd's Angels never registered on my radar, I think I just wrote it off as an original story featuring the character. I didn't realize the book also enfolds the novelizations of his episodes into a single narrative. I have to admit, now I'm a little curious.

It makes sense to me now why this wasn't with the other episodes, too. It's kind of doing it's own thing, judging from a little extra research. Thank you for helping to put it into perspective.

 

[DrCorby]

How intriguing! I like Harry Mudd but I'm not a war-wacky fan about him. I always roll my eyes about the Into Darkness easter egg, but I really enjoyed his return in some of the Discovery episodes. Mudd's Angels never registered on my radar, I think I just wrote it off as an original story featuring the character. I didn't realize the book also enfolds the novelizations of his episodes into a single narrative. I have to admit, now I'm a little curious.

As I recall, James Blish had set aside the two Mudd episodes with the intent of creating a new Mudd (mis)adventure to be published in a single volume with the episode adaptations. Unfortunately, he passed away before he could write it. His wife, J.A. Lawrence, convinced Bantam to let her write it instead. (I don't remember whether he'd left any notes about his intended story.) Since she'd been helping him (uncredited until Star Trek 12) with the last few collections due to his failing health, they agreed.

I have little memory of the story, except being completely underwhelmed. I wasn't convinced by the explanation of his escape from the planet of androids, nor by what happened to his special keepers, the 500 androids of the Stella series. I remember nothing of the actual storyline, and I haven't been moved to reread it since its initial publication. I'm glad Blish's adaptations were completed. I'm a fan of his writing, including Spock Must Die!, the Hugo award-winning A Case of Conscience, and his Cities in Flight series. Unfortunately, Lawrence was not a writer of the same stature. But, certainly, buy and read it for the sake of completeness, and judge for yourself.

Please note that the TAS Mudd episode is not included in this collection. Contractually, that stayed with the TAS adaptations that Alan Dean Foster did for Ballantine books.