F/SF

By volume 11 of the Blish Trek books, he was nearly finished the available episodes, so this is a mediocre bunch. Reading the episodes in order in 2020, this is the 8th book I finished. Nothing jarringly different from the aired episodes, just the same annoying little mistakes as noted before (slamming doors). ( )

I think this must have been the last book Blish published in his life-time. It says that Star Treks 1-10 total 6.5 million books printed which is interesting in that over 40 years later it's not these that are still in print, but rather a half dozen or so very influential SF novels straight from his own imagination that show a fascination with Catholic theology, James Joyce and shock endings, among other things.

It feels like the later members of this series of adaptations of the original Star Trek shooting scripts suffered from being essentially the dregs; the best had all been used earlier. Here several of the stories make no sense at all and one of them ends with a hideous cop-out deus ex machina - but blame the script writers, not Blish! ( )

Yes, my final trip down memory lane with the original cast and crew of Star Trek. This volumes includes "The Squire of Gothos" (which was recently shown here in the US) and "Plato's Stepchildren." This latter episode featured the first inter-racial kiss in television and was quite revolutionary for the late 60's. So I am glad I revisited the galaxy in this volume, and am very, very glad I held onto these little volumes instead of sending them to the used book pile. ( )

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" S01E07
"Squire of Gothos" S01E17
"Wink of an Eye" S03E11
"Bread and Circuses" S02E25
"Day Of the Dove" S03E07
"Plato's Stepchildren" S03E10