(Prepared in advance, away at a weekend conference)
In recent times I've probably written a little too much about Star Trek. It's natural as the history of my reading and media consumption is tied absolutely to that franchise, or at least to the original series first and to 'Star Trek' The Next Generation (TNG) second. That is the way of things. Before TNG, and even before the movies the original series lived on in another medium: Prose. Much like its contemporary Doctor Who, 'Star Trek' lived on in words as well as syndication. Original 'Star Trek' novels didn't boom until the movies hit but before then there were anthologies of episode novelisations and they were written (barring the Harry Mudd stories) by a man called James Blish between 1967 and his death in 1977. (JA Lawrence finished off the collection with the Mudd stories in 1978.)
The story of 'Star Trek' and myself starts in a really murky way, since I can't actually remember it. There were the episodes 'For The Earth Is Hollow And I Have Touched The Sky' and 'The Day Of The Dove' that we had on VHS, the James Blish adaptations, the novelisation of 'Star Trek' III, the movies, and finally TNG and then 'Star Trek' itself on BBC2. BBC2 used to show good television at one time, just so you know, and Channel 4 too. They weren't averse to paying money for reruns of scripted series instead of really cheap and horrible reality shows. Gosh, 'Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea' was good on Sunday mornings!
To get back on track, it was the Blish version of the series I experienced first, and those stories were fascinating. Not only were they based on early versions of the scripts, and sometimes quite different from what appeared on screen, but they were and are often the best way to experience the ill-fated final third season of the original series. I would even go so far as to suggest they be compulsory reading for anyone who professes to love the original show. A classic example is 'The Doomsday Machine', which onscreen is so slow, portentous and padded an episode that is at times almost unwatchable. In the Blish form though, it is incredibly straightforward and effective, although losing drama by eliminating much of Decker's obsessiveness. Even if there were no other merits, the novelty of seeing earlier versions of the episodes in print is a valuable one. To put it another way, any guy who can add value and coherence to 'Operation Annihilate!' is a good one! He streamlined out unnecessary complications, introduced better motivations, and made things work far better than ever they should.
While extolling the virtues of the adaptations, it would be remiss of me not to explain how they came about and their historical context. This was an era when there was no home video, no streaming, no 'Star Trek' movies. There were a few Bantam novels (including 'Spock Must Die!' by Blish again), some episodic photo books (odd concept), reruns of the original show and the Blish novelisations. Unlike other shows where the adaptations came and went ('The Man From UNCLE' had quite a few novelisations, for example), all of this conspired to keep an idea alive. 'Star Trek' became richer as writers added to it, and imaginations flared with what the lack of restriction in print meant for Star Trek in comparison to what couldn't be done on screen in the late 1960. It all should have been a glorious blip in history, but somehow it wasn't. Partly, that was down to James Blish. James Blish could write astonishingly well. In coming months 'Cities In Flight' will also be spotlighted here in all its quirky and thematic glory, as well as perhaps 'A Case Of Conscience'. He could take difficult concepts, ideas that we don't always want to accept, and make them acceptable. This will become clearer as we go into those works.
Here endeth this 'Star Trek' monologues.
O.
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