I remember noting, in my youth, how many spelling differences there were between Foster's adaptations and The Star Trek Concordance. I think the later reprint collections fixed some of Foster's original spellings.
Thoughts and observations on the Kzinti from "The Slaver Weapon”
- Thread starter Lord Other
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Do you mean “Time Trap”?
LOL. Alot of folks feel the same way. Was he upset with the look of the Traitor's Claw from your recollection? I know the design of the ship from "The Soft Weapon" describes a squat, cone shaped vessel if memory serves me right.
If you look at the Ringworld RPG materials regarding the Kzinti (which Larry Niven is said to use in handouts to prospective authors to give them some foundation to work from), the "thick" look for the Kzinti is the correct one for their general appearance. BTW- I'm more than a little envious your have met and spoken to Mr. Niven! Nice photo- congrats!
The section I quoted is from a thread indicates that material is specifically from "The Time Trap" script. You can read the thread in question, here.
I think at this point it is safe to say that ADF is not a reliable source for information about TAS episodes, except perhaps as a general overview of the story. The filler narratives though (such as the backstory for M'Ress) could be useful material to draw from, if taken with a critical eye.
Yeah, I think at this point we pretty much have to look at ADF TAS novelization as being unreliable source material to draw upon. If you can't get the names and physical features of the characters you are working with correct, then you're not much better off listening to the old Star Trek TOS children's LP record stories IMHO.
I wonder if ADF corrected them himself or if it was the editor/publisher who had a hand in it?
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No, "Slaver Weapon."
You're both coincidentally illustrating another discrepancy between TAS and Foster -- namely that Foster left the definite article off of several episode titles (the other being "[The] Jihad").
You wrote “none of the names of the alien races” plural so I was curious.
Quickly thumbing through the draft of "Slaver Weapon," ADF referred to "Caitians" as "Katians" and the "Kzinti" are the "Kazenti."
Here's a fun one: When Chuft-Captain was first introduced, ADF refered to him as Chef-Captain. Then later, ADF called him Chess-Captain. Finally, he became Cheft-Captain. And all these variations are in the same draft, mind you.
Perhaps the errors arose because ADF was under pressure to get the manuscript completed?
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That's a neat idea, the councilor is in a peaceful place and part of the civilization, those other guys are renegades and maybe not doing too well, as in not having regular meals. Also stress can affect a sophont adversely as well, that could explain the differences, if you wanted it to.
Foster used to dictate his “manuscripts” on a dictaphone, which were then typed up by a professional typist. Foster then used that text as a first draft for later correction and revision. So it’s no surprise the first draft would be full of misspellings — the typist was transcribing unfamiliar words based on how they sounded.
I have no source for this except my memory — I introduced Foster at a symposium in the mid-80’s, and quizzed him beforehand for sound bites for the Introduction.
Okay!
That is the explanation I needed. Hence, when ADF was reading out the script directions, Edoan could easily be mistaken for Andorian, Gorin for Gorn and Tallerine for Tellarite.
I note that one of the aliens "not seen before" is Phylosian, from "The Infinite Vulcan".
The other ADF quirk in the Logs, which I do appreciate, is that he ignored the quite random scripted "Stardates" from the episodes, and gave them new star dates than ran in order of novelization, not in airdate nor production order. And the new order also makes more sense than Bjo's attempt, in the "Concordance", to put all of TOS/TAS in star date order, which places one of TAS before the second TOS pilot, IIRC.
Random thought: Could the proto-Kzin in "The Time Trap" just be... fluffy?
The Magicks of Megas-Tu does have a Stardate set before Where No Man Has Gone Before which is ludicrous! Surely the writers would have been briefed to keep their show out of the continuity of the original series? Apparently not though! 
JB
JB
Thanks for this, it explains why his rough draft is broken into three separately-numbered sections. It also explains why the last section starts with the header "Tape 3".
Alchemist, his eyes uncovered!
Prell, lots of it. Or Mane and Tail. More amenities that renegades would lack.
Hi y'all. Daddy has it right. At the time I wrote the Logs I was dictating into a small portable tape recorder (this is the tech Jurassic, remember). The tapes would then be given to a professional typist to transcribe, and I would write the final draft from her transcriptions. Have a thought for the poor lady. A non-SF reader, she struggled mightily to transcribe phonetically many words that made absolutely no sense to her. Not to mention proper names (hence "Katians" vs. "Caitians", etc.). Also, I only had scripts to work from. I had only the barest notion of what new characters (M'ress, Arex, etc.) looked like. It was not unlike writing ALIEN, where Fox would not supply any images whatsoever of the Alien.
All this was a looonggg time ago. Side trivia note: Robert Kline, who worked on the animated show and later worked for Disney, was one of my best friends from the 9th grade on through high school. The cover for the first printings of Log Five is his work. Wonderful artist.
All this was a looonggg time ago. Side trivia note: Robert Kline, who worked on the animated show and later worked for Disney, was one of my best friends from the 9th grade on through high school. The cover for the first printings of Log Five is his work. Wonderful artist.
Hello and greetings Mr. Foster. It's good to have you here, and thank you for the insight into your writing process- it sounds like you put the poor lady through her paces. From what you're saying, it seems like ParamountFilmation didn't give you much of any, or only limited visual analogues / material to draw from when you were writing the novelizations. I can imagine that made it.. interesting. Was that the norm for all episodes, or was it hopscotch / varied, depending on what? I had read somewhere that Fox had you write in the blind for Alien, and I was curious how you had went about getting it done. I would hope they at least gave you a written or verbal description of the creature to work with, but still that's pretty crazy.
As a personal side note, I have read a number of your books and adaptations, my favourites being "The Last Starfighter", your uncredited work on the original Star Wars movie novelization, and last but not least, "Splinter of the Mind's Eye ". Thank you. Its been a pleasure reading your work sir.
Nice! Your friend has had quite the career. I and several people I know would love to meet him and hear about his experiences. Since I guess Mr. Kline isn't here on TrekBBS, I hope you don't mind if I ask if he ever talked about, or told you about the process that the Filmation artists used in creating / coming up with designs for TAS? I have always been curious about that. From what I know Mr. Kline came up with the look for the sur-snake (obviously), and a number of the other TAS characters, aliens, creatures, and props.
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Paramount would've had little if anything to do with it. I think they distributed it, but it was a production of Filmation and Roddenberry's Norway Corporation, because he hadn't yet sold the series to Paramount.
Ah yes, thank you for clearing that up. Do you know if Roddenberry / Norway Corporation worked directly with and approved or provided materials to Filmation for the artists to work from? My own knowledge about how the look of TAS came to be, specifically in regards to the production of the series is somewhat limited comparitvely.
The Magicks of Megas-Tu does have a Stardate set before Where No Man Has Gone Before which is ludicrous! Surely the writers would have been briefed to keep their show out of the continuity of the original series? Apparently not though!
JB
The rule of thumb was only that Stardates could be quite random, but should proceed consecutively within an episode. Putting episodes in Stardate order doesn't achieve much.
ADF's new Stardates in the "Logs" work much better for TAS.
DC Fontana was the conduit, AFAIK.
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