What is so shocking about number 10, changing your bar for bookshelves sounds an eminently sensible idea.
@jscottphillips50321 күн бұрын
I agree! But many people find eminently sensible ideas to be quite shocking.
@enemyofbohemiaАй бұрын
I really appreciate your videos, since not a lot of people delve into the illustration side of SF which is honestly what sold so many books and captured the imagination from the outset. And you know your stuff and are very well spoken on the historical topic, so that is much appreciated as a fellow artist.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Thank you! Very often the cover art and other illustrations are stories in themselves, so I think they should be told! Thanks for watching!
@user-be2dt8eg2xАй бұрын
Read the Asimov novelization; but the original story by Bixby and Klement? is hard to find.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I'm pretty sure the story by Bixby and Klement was written specifically for the movie. At least, I've never seen any reference to their original story as a published work in itself.
@user-be2dt8eg2x28 күн бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Saw an article on the original story years ago; the original tale is a steampunk style adventure. When they adapted the story for the movie, they made it very sleek and modern. So I think the original was published somewhere, or maybe they wrote it and sold it to Fox.
@jscottphillips50328 күн бұрын
@@user-be2dt8eg2x That would be really interesting to read!
@aarondyer.pianistАй бұрын
I don’t see how anyone can write ST fiction who is not thoroughly versed in the show, and your review proves my point. I read a lot of it many years ago and learned to be picky about it. Even without the homoerotic stuff there is some real trash out there. I don’t know how it gets published.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yeah. I think it took awhile for the editors to catch up to what the fans actually loved about the show, and that it shouldn't just be any old science fiction with a Star Trek facade. Frederik Pohl, Bantam's original Star Trek editor, didn't really care about it.
@aarondyer.pianistАй бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 I stick with tried and true, like Judith and Garfield, Duane Carey, William Shatner (which I think means Judith and Garfield), et al.
@deborajohnson5717Ай бұрын
It is so hard to let books go! I enjoyed the video
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
They really are! Thanks for watching.
@Yesica1993Ай бұрын
Wish I could help out, but I am in desperate need of an "unhaul", myself. I am literally running out of flat spaces upon which to pile books. I'm not exaggerating when I say I don't even eat at my kitchen table. (I promise I'm not a hoarder, LOL!) Thanks for explaining the term, "alienist"! I saw that book everywhere back in the day and had no clue. You'd think I'd have taken 5 minutes to look it up. But I'd always forget. I have my own copy of The Caine Mutiny, or else I'd be tempted to grab that one. It really is fantastic! I read it a few years ago and could not put it down. I've not seen the movie. I always feel sad for books that don't have a home. I've sold pretty much all that can be sold. (For a pittance. Ugh!) It's so hard to know what to do with them. I hate the thought of them in a dumpster too. If there are any of the Little Free Libraries around you, that might work.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I'm considering the Little Free Libraries. There are quite a few around here. But those coffee table books! I don't think they will even fit in those little bird houses! We shall see. They are both beautiful books. It would be a shame of they wound up in a dumpster somewhere. But ... you haven't seen the film version of "The Caine Mutiny"? That is now your homework assignment!. It is excellent. "It all started with the strawberries!"
@Yesica1993Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Will do!
@stillhuntre55Ай бұрын
I had all the Blish books before I moved! My Mum gave them to me! Is it weird that as soon as I saw the thumbnail, I could SMELL the book?
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Ha! That might be a LITTLE weird, but that iconic cover is certainly soaked in nostalgia!
@borusa32Ай бұрын
I grew up in a seaside town in the UK and picked up Star Trek 1 at a shop on the sea front one summer. I remember getting the orange cover version of Spock Must Die and getting rather worried about the transporter.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
That transporter idea really got to me. I also find it interesting how often we can remember exactly where we bought a favorite book decades earlier. Thanks for watching!
@CraigHockerАй бұрын
36:30 I prefer the orange cover for the memories but like the Japanese cover as well.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I'm fascinated by the Japanese rendering of the Enterprise. Do you think maybe the illustrator only had a verbal description to go by, and never saw a photo of the ship? That's what I imagine happened, but maybe he just wanted to do something interpretive. Either way - for me - it winds up being as off-beat as Blish's own handling of the characters he never saw portrayed.
@CraigHockerАй бұрын
22:00 wow, I had all four of those books with those covers.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Those were the days!
@BigAL68xyzАй бұрын
That Japanese cover gets an A for energy, even if it only gets a D for accuracy.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Agreed!
@GaryMartinDobbsАй бұрын
Only just started my own channel and was delighted to find yours. Man, this amount of detail is what I need to include. I've subbed. Please give me a sub. Nice bottle of Jamesons on your shelf by the way. By the way how long does it take to download a 48 min vid to the tube.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Ah! Glad you found me. I've subbed you back, and looking forward to following your vids. Ah, the Jameson. I'm more of a single-malt guy, but Jameson is kept on hand for emergencies, or for those times when I'd like a more economical drop of the true without having guests or contemplation time. It's more utilitarian. That particular bottle featured prominently in my video on "A Study in Scarlet", possibly the best use I've put it to recently. I see you've got a recent video on whisky yourself, so perhaps I'll curl up with a bit of Ardbeg and watch it. As far as uploading a video that long, it just seems to depend. I usually upload them just after midnight when there seems to be more bandwidth in my area available. It often takes just a few minutes longer than it takes me to fill out my description while the video is chugging upstream. So ... maybe anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes, for whatever reasons. Your mileage may vary. Welcome to BookTube, and thanks for watching! Sláinte!
@GaryMartinDobbsАй бұрын
Read this book so many years ago...will have to track it down for a re-read.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Enjoy!
@DaddyToddАй бұрын
The original cover art for Mission to Horatius was auctioned on eBay 20 or 25 years ago. I bid on it, but it soon got too expensive for me.
@DaddyToddАй бұрын
Interesting video. Star Trek 12 is also by Eddie Jones, and like 9-11, actually originated on German translations of earlier volumes of Blish’s Star Trek titles. Which explains why the cover layout for Star Trek 10 somehow manages to hide the Enterprise behind a block of text! It was painted for an entirely different cover layout: www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/4/4f/NTRPRSXJJP1973.jpg (the numbering was different in German - this is actually a translation of HALF of Star Trek 9)
@jamesmurray8558Ай бұрын
I said the same thing about Jar-Jar Blinks 😂!!!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Ha!
@markharris1125Ай бұрын
I've mentioned in another comment that we didn't get Star Trek in the UK until very late - I think I said it was 1970 but I just checked and it was July 1969, coinciding with Apollo 11. I rember having those early collections, and Spock Must Die as well, but I wonder if I read the collections before I even saw the series? And the novel after seeing just season 1? I remember the story so well, all the rumonations on the transporter. The great idea of a duplicate Spock, the clever science behind it all. I'd like to read it again now, to spot the inconsistencies you mention, that passed me by as as a young teenager. I remember I had the original orange cover, goodness knows where I got it from. Great memories.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I can only imagine how those early Blish books would read if you hadn't seen the TV show first. Having read them AFTER knowing the show so well, and the specific episodes, they seemed odd in various ways. But if you read them just as original stories might have been a whole other experience!
@markharris1125Ай бұрын
@jscottphillips503 I don't know if you saw my other comment but we had the Star Trek comic strip in magazines based on the Gery Anderson Thunderbirds universe - Joe 90 Top Secret and TV21. (I've done some research since commenting and am correcting myself.) The comics started early in 1969 so we had six months of seeing Trek on the page before seeing the show. I wasn't at all sure I'd like Star Trek - I'd never seen a spaceship that looked like that, all these bits and pieces held together by struts, how ridiculous. And I wasn't aware of naval traditions, had no idea why everyone was Mister this and Mister that. But there must have been articles about the show because I know when July rolled round there were two things I was looking forward to - Apollo 11 and Star Trek. Neither one disappointed.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
@@markharris1125 Indeed! The naval traditions carried over quite a bit. When I first saw the Enterprise, all those struts threw me, too. But I remember my father saying, "Well, you know, there is no wind or air in space, so a ship wouldn't have to be so streamlined." After that, I got it. I have a couple volumes of those comic strip reprints. That's something we haven't had in in the states at all until those reprint editions came out. Sure wish we had those back then!
@markharris1125Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 You're the first person I've spoken to who remembers the comic strip!
@ToddsBookTube91Ай бұрын
Just discovered your channel! Nice video. Nice set of books on your shelves as well.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Thanks! Glad you enjoyed the video.
@loftus4453Ай бұрын
Wow. Haven’t seen this book cover since I was a little girl growing up in south Texas in the 70’s (and yes, Spock was/is my favorite character). James Blish wrote so many of the Star Trek novels/stories I read in the 70’s. I saved all my allowance every week to buy Star Trek books. I’d con my big brother into giving me candy he bought from his allowance. 🤣 My favorites were the photo novels which came out during that period. Thanks for posting this! ❤ I wasn’t a huge fan of the Blish novels from the 70’s. He had great ideas, but his characterizations always seemed off to me so it was hard for me get into the stories. Did you ever read The Price of the Phoenix and The Fate of the Phoenix? Great but weird books about duplicate Kirks. Those books came out in the late 70’s. They explore the Kirk and Spock friendship thoroughly, some might think even too thoroughly, but I loved those books as a pre-teen girl. Still have them somewhere in my collection.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yes, I plan on making videos about the Phoenix books eventually. There sure were a lot of duplicate characters back in those days! Thanks for watching!
@loftus4453Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 I’ll watch for those. Tough books to review I’d think. They have ok plots, but the driving narrative in both books is pure emotion. As I said, they are strange books. I’ve read them as an adult and had a completely different take on them compared to my kid self.
@kali3665Ай бұрын
Definitely the first Star Trek novel for adults - there are a LOT of very esoteric scientific concepts in this novel, and I love the debate of life vs death that we get throughout. Bones McCoy has good reason to fear the transporter!! It took me a long time to really like the novel. When I first read the book, I was too young to really understand it, and the relationships between the crew seemed (to me) very off. But repeated readings helped me understand its point and its focus. And it's nihilistic ending would never be permitted in spinoff media nowadays. Now, it's one of my favorite Star Trek novels, along with Vonda McIntyre's The Entropy Effect, which also had some interesting scientific concepts.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I tend to agree. With all its flaws, it's still a fun read, gives us some new concepts, and it was certainly a welcome sight on the book racks when it first came out.
@DougVanDornАй бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 One thing I recall, and I'm almost positive it was from this novel, was Blish's description of the visual effects of being on the outside of the hull of a starship while traveling at warp. He described the familiar lines and curves of the ship becoming twisted and turning along physical dimensions that don't exist in normal spacetime, thus rendering the view of the ship at warp incomprehensible. Very interesting scientific concept, but something I realized at the time would be totally impossible to try and show on screen.
@roberthasse7862Ай бұрын
Wondering about your "Bones" comment. I pulled my copy off the shelf just now. The first chapter is called "McCoy without Bones."
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yeah, I never really understood that title. If it was a nod at the nickname, it is certainly unexplained in the story. Just didn't seem there was ever a real reason for the "Doc" moniker.
@hanoc101Ай бұрын
I used to read Star Trek TOS original novels and most of them did not have the same feel of the original series and characters so I stopped. I suspect that many of the writers were just using Star Trek as a vehicle to start or boost their own careers as writers and had no knowledge of Star Trek.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yes, or they were based on a lot of the fan fiction tropes of their day. They didn't have the studio oversight or adherence to the writer's guide like they would later on.
@felixrodrigues3861Ай бұрын
fantastic voyage will always be my favorite movie.
@OrchestrationOnlineАй бұрын
If Brave New Worlds rolls over into a remake of TOS, I would love to see some of the better ST novels made into episodes - especially this one.
@astralplane6182Ай бұрын
Spock Must Die was an oasis in the desert for fans after the end of TOS. Still remember Scotty's complaint about the pants having no pockets, and how the improvised energy source of the escape ship was like tapping directly into God. Great stuff!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
We were all hungry for new Star Trek back then. It was a thrill to see it show up on the bookstands.
@brycesuderow3576Ай бұрын
Are any of you fans of James Blish? How does this book Spock mistake? Compare to his other writing. Are there common seams or common interest of the author present?
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Blish does sneak some of his own pet ideas from other writings into his Star Trek adaptations, here and there.
@jimsteele9261Ай бұрын
I've always thought they should have played off McCoy's "taker your molecules apart" notion as just something that an uninformed or comedic person says. That it really is related to the warp drive and bends space-time locally. That makes more sense and has the added benefit of eliminating stupid episodes like "Enemy Within" and "Tuvix" 🙂 BTW, some of those early original novels were really bad!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
That's an interesting take on transporter technology. Haven't heard that one before.
@jimsteele9261Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 It kinda makes sense. The sheer amount of data required to specify the quantum state of every atom in a person is impossibly huge.
@Allan_aka_RocKITEmanАй бұрын
I remember hearing about this novel decades ago, but I never read it personally.
@aliceharper707Ай бұрын
I bought this book when it first came out and read it at that time. But I haven't read it since and I don't remember it. I'm going to have to dig it out of one of the boxes I have in storage and read it again. I loved the book. I loved all of the books that James blish wrote for the Star Trek series. I had all of the original first three books of adaptations from the screenplays. Unfortunately, when I went to college, my brother donated my entire collection to the library so it took years for me to get copies of those books back. I still don't have the original first editions of the books which makes me sad.
@AlexanderJWeiАй бұрын
I started with Blish's first adaptation and continued until his last. I did NOT continue with the Alan Dean Foster books for the cartoon series. My reading of Blish's versions was a bit off, because Blish would include stuff from his own future history, like the Vegan Tyranny; but eventually I became a fan of Blish's own work even more than I had been a Star Trek fan. I remembered that in Spock Must Die! he included stuff about Eurish, the strange pastiche language that James Joyce wrote his Finnegan's Wake in; because Blish himself was a great fan of Joyce. It became a feature on New Wave SF, as the New Wave seemed to love the Joycean stream of consciousness style. I suppose I wasn't at first thrown off by Blish not seeing the series, as I had not myself seen much of the series at first either. To my recollection, the first and possibly only ep I saw on the first run was Cat's Paw.
@AlexanderJWeiАй бұрын
Many years later, I ran into a book by Dorothy L. Sayers which talked some about reflected proteins, of the L and R versions. She did not use her usual detective, Lord Peter Wimsey; this book was written in collaboration with a doctor and was called The Documents in the Case. There was not any mirror to reflect anything, but most of our foods exist in L form, but R forms are possible.
@AlexanderJWeiАй бұрын
My interpretation, for what it's worth, of the Japanese cover title is Two (something something something) Spokku.
@AlexanderJWeiАй бұрын
Spokku being, of course, the Japanese transliteration of Spock, rendered in Japanese katakana...
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Interesting. I have sometimes wondered what a reader might make of the Blish adaptations without having seen the show before.
@AlexanderJWeiАй бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Well, as the show went into syndication shortly afterwards, the purity of my experience was quickly complicated. I just kept reading Blish adaptations alongside of watching reruns. I suppose I really know the adaptations better than the reruns, but I knew both pretty well
@michaelhall2709Ай бұрын
“The question,” said McCoy, “is, obviously, the soul. Am I still the Leonard McCoy who first stepped into that infernal machine twenty years ago, or just a very convincing simulacrum?” Kirk said, “The ability to worry about the question is, I think, its own answer.” “You may be right, Jim. In fact, you had better be right. Because if you’re not, every time we send someone through the transporter for the first time, we commit murder.” And that’s not even really the main plot of the book! Yes, the novel doesn’t capture the characters all that well, but it definitely is the product of someone who wrote about ideas for a living.
@fepattonАй бұрын
Oh man - that quote brought back memories!
@JanetDaxАй бұрын
As described in the story, Mirror Spock was reversed on the molecular level, which made his body chemistry incompatible with normal food. Doesn't mean his tunic was visibly reversed, or the reversal would be noticed without tricorder scan.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Well, Scotty's experiments with sending other objects through the transporter came all back physically reversed, due to the reflection of the beam off the field around Organia. He and Kirk even discussed the reversal of Spock's badge specifically but, not knowing yet about the reversal, neither had thought to look before the duplicate had time to make adjustments like that.
@bobbuethe1477Ай бұрын
I haven't reread the book since the '70s, so correct me if I'm wrong. But IIRC, (1) It was fairly late in the story when someone realized the duplicate Spock was a mirror image, so no one thought to look for differences, and (2) the duplicate realized immediately that he was a reflection, and switched his uniform shirt before anyone else did, as well as consciously adjusting his habits (like the eyebrow raise).
@speetaАй бұрын
I like how the second Bantam cover art deliberately puts a lot of orange in it's palette, as if to say "Recognize me, this is the same book as the earlier edition."
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I wonder if that was actually deliberate, but you're right... it certainly helps to connect them visually.
@speetaАй бұрын
It's been so long since I read it. I recall that one of the reasons it was difficult to differentiate the two Spocks upon initial medical examination was a mention of a symmetrical internal anatomy. Internal imaging would be inconclusive. I know that's not canon.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Ah, that's right.But if you think about it for even a minute, a symmetrical internal anatomy isn't even be possible. In the context of the story, I guess one can accept it on the surface. Still a fun story.
@michaelschramm1064Ай бұрын
I recall owning and reading the original Bantam orange edition. Nice collection of books, featuring a lot of great Asimov, Clarke and Carl Sagan titles. “The Demon Haunted World” is perhaps my favorite of the 10 or so titles I read by Sagan.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Everyone remembers that orange cover! And yes, "The Demon Haunted World" is Sagan's best for me as well.
@DarrylRuiz-s1wАй бұрын
Remember Kirk calling MCcoy Doc that was annoying but the story was good and the idea of two Spock's was cool
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Still a fun read!
@patricktilton5377Ай бұрын
Asimov's 'sequel' -- or 're-jiggering' -- novel "FANTASTIC VOYAGE II: DESTINATION BRAIN" is quite excellent, and it helps tie-in his other sci-fi novels' concepts, especially his version of Hyperdrive technology & physics. Basically, his interstellar spaceships make 'jumps' through Hyperspace, and it seems that the way they do this is they instantaneously are reduced to Zero Mass and Zero Volume -- and, perhaps, to LESS than Zero Mass and Volume -- so that they can zip across space-time like a tachyon in Zero Time from one position to another. The miniaturized submarine-like vehicle in the 'sequel' novel is specified to be less massive than its non-miniaturized form, losing mass as it loses size in proportion. As I recall, it is in the aftermath of the adventure that the notion of applying the miniaturization technology to Spaceflight is deduced to be the next logical application of the idea, opening the door to the potentiality of Humanity spreading out into the Galaxy. In addition to that sci-fi aspect which complements Asimov's previous notions, it's a great adventure involving West-versus-East (i.e. Soviets -- the novel having been written several years before the collapse of the USSR) intrigue, an element from the original FV screenplay-and-novelization that he probably thought ought to be included in his own 'sequel'. Incidentally, Asimov also wrote a short story (in one of his later collections of Robot stories) involving the miniaturization notion. It, too, was a good read. Its title escapes me at the moment -- sorry!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
That's interesting. I know Asimov thought the idea of miniaturization was ridiculous but, when he used it in his own stories, he did his best to make it believable. Thanks for watching!
@irish66Ай бұрын
I could be wrong, but I would guess knopf is pronounced without the K, as in Knee, Knock, Knight, Knack, Knuckle etc etc. I believe I have read all the Macdonald novels. His best for me was The Underground Man. It was his The Long Goodbye. Chandler didn't rate him though. He uses far more similes than Chandler ever did. As you probably know there is/was a legend going around that the name Archer came from the last name of Sam Spade's partner in The Maltese Falcon. Thanks for the correct story. I didn't know that The Moving Target was first published under the John McDonald name. I looked up the other books except The Big Sleep (Chandler is my favourite writer) depicted at around the 25 min mark. The Blank wall was adapted into the Movies The Reckless moment and The Deep end. On the cover of Archer fighting on the bridge he is wearing a blue suit. That reminds me of the opening of The Big Sleep in which Marlowe is wearing a powder blue suit. Regarding the picture at around the 27th minute mark, Archer (if it supposed to him) looks positively satanic to me. Here I am reminded of Hammets description of Sam Spade looking like a blond satan. Wow, it wasn't until the seventh novel, that he used Ross Macdonald. On around the 31 minute mark. so the name wasn't changed fom Archer to Harper, because Paul Newman had hits with H movies such The Hustler, and Hud. Love the cover at around the 46 min mark. I don't find the words hard to read.But I am only seeing the cover on a screen. I live in irelamd. and I think the first Archer novel I read was The Doomsters. It was under Fontana Books. This was the cover for The Moving Target. live.staticflickr.com/5502/9550998618_389ab64424_b.jpg
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I'm not sure how the studio selected the name "Harper." Maybe it WAS because Newman's movies often had H titles. It does have a similar literation, so felt right. But it had to be changed to SOMEthing other than Archer, because they wouldn't pay Macdonald what he wanted for the rights to use his character's name. As for the origin of the name Archer: 12 years before Macdonald named the character, he had written a poem using his mother's maiden name to symbolize a devine archer: "What bowman launched thee forth?" Naming him after Miles Archer never occurred to him then but, after he noticed the similarity, he often pointed it out himself and claimed it was intentional. Alfred A. Knopf is a venerable American publisher and famously pronounces it with the hard K> Sounds like you're an avid Detective reader who enjoys attention to detail! Thanks for watching, and for the in-depth comments!
@irish66Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Oops. Thanks for correcting me on Knopf. I discoverd Chandler before MacDonald. It was the Raymond Chandler omnibus featuring The Simple Art of Murder, and all of all the novels except The Little Sister. I fell in love with his writing straight away. I am a fan of all his novels except the last one. Someone I lent a Macdonald book to, described it as "dry". I got what he meant. I find his plots too complicated, and never understand how he solves the crime. From wikipedia page on The Moving Target movie "Goldman adapted The Chill (1964), another Macdonald novel, for the same producers, but it was not filmed.[18] Newman pulled out of the project, and Sam Peckinpah became attached as director for a while as the film was set up at Commonwealth United Entertainment. When that company ended its film operations," Yeah it's a pity there were not more movie versions of Archer novels. There aee two excellent audio versions with full cast of Sleeping Beauty and The Zebra Striped Hearse with Harris Yulin as Archer.
@vertiform_cityАй бұрын
That Hayakawa artwork would make a great wall poster.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I agree!
@duanekeith7816Ай бұрын
Regarding the Transporter, see the novel Way Station, by Clifford D Simak.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yes!
@GinaStanyerBooksАй бұрын
I really enjoyed this book. I only started reading Star Trek recently, and would never have noticed much of this (but I loooove your detail here!)
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Thanks, Gina! I only wish I had gotten to more books while Summer of Trek lasted! Thanks for watching!
@MrBillSDАй бұрын
Still have my original Bantam copy I bought as a kid. Cover price 60cents. Remember having the same reaction to “Doc” although the first chapter name is called McCoy Without Bones. I knew Blish was working from scripts for the series adaptations but never realized he hadn’t actually seen the series initially. Although some character moments were off, I really enjoyed the story.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yes, still a fun read!
@stephenbastasch7893Ай бұрын
Thanks for the well-measured comments. For me, Blish never really "got" Star Trek- as you say, his Star trek novels would have been greatly improved - had he been able to actually watch the show. My highest admiration for Blish is for his religion-based material, such as the two-book novel, Black Easter / The Day After Judgment...
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
And "A Case of Conscience"! I agree!
@stephenbastasch7893Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Yes...!
@stillhuntre55Ай бұрын
Interesting! I read his books years ago as a substitute for the show, as it wasn't broadcast where I lived and my parents were huge fans and wanted me to experience Star Trek in some form - so I never made that connection. I'd say the same about the Law & Order novels. The author has obviously never watched the show, so I get what you're saying.
@masonbricke4568Ай бұрын
These transporter "malfunctions" sound like the origin of the food replicaror, except the replicator won't give you an "evil" version of your chicken soup.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Don't be too sure. You've never tried the chicken soup my sister made!
@masonbricke4568Ай бұрын
Never before have I been talked out of reading a novel, much less a Star Trek novel, but you have just pulled it off. Thanks for the admonition. 😕
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Oh, no! Such was not my intent at all! If I didn't, I should have mentioned it is definitely a fun read, especially in its historic context for Star Trek fans. I've read the book many times, myself, and always enjoyed it. But like any Star Trek episode, we can always discuss the points, good or bad, and then still watch them over and over again.
@masonbricke4568Ай бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 I see. Fresh perspective! I'll be looking for it then. And when I get a copy, I will take a pencil and mark through every reference to "Doc", writing above it, "Bones". Those little things bug me. Thanks for the info. 😌
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
I hope you relish it as much as I!
@NelsonStJamesАй бұрын
Wow, I seriously never thought I'd see anyone on KZbin ever bring this book up. Still have my 1st edition on the shelf.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
It's a keeper!
@duanekeith7816Ай бұрын
@@NelsonStJames I've found it quite poignant.
@duanekeith7816Ай бұрын
Along with City.
@duanekeith7816Ай бұрын
Together they cost $1.85 new in paperback.
@mrScififan2Ай бұрын
I love the idea that the transporter is a death machine! lol!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yes! And what a way to go!
@masonbricke4568Ай бұрын
"...And this, cadets, is the Quantum Death Machine, or as we like to call it, the Transporter. We'll return to the academy by beaming there, so you can know what it's like. Who's first? Anybody?"
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
@@masonbricke4568 Not me!
@mrScififan2Ай бұрын
WOW! Mr. Blish never saw Star Trek when he wrote the adaptations!
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yeah, the early books, at least. The first book in particular. When Blish was writing that one, the first episodes were only then being produced and hadn't even aired yet, so NOBODY had seen the show yet. That book came out in January, after Star Trek first premiered in September. The rest of the books trickled out well into the '70s and, by then, his wife was helping him write them more and more.
@DougVanDornАй бұрын
@@jscottphillips503 Add to that the fact that Blish was mostly working off of script versions from before people like Roddenberry and Coon re-wrote them, to bring the characters' voices in line with how they were being portrayed. And to bring the details in line with the universe that was being developed on the fly as the show went along. So, you have everything from small character points to enormous plot devices in the Blish adaptations that got axed in the first in-house rewrites of the scripts. It was interesting to see how that worked, because even though I was only 11 years old at the time, I could see the stories were based on early versions of the scripts. One big plot device I recall that never made it to air was in the adaptation of "The Mark of Gideon," in which the guest love interest's father kept arguing that SOMEONE had to die, in order to create the social changes needed to reduce the population. Spock then countered his argument by introducing the concept of propaganda tools, showing how such tools were able to convince these pesky Earthmen to do all sorts of crazy things throughout their histories. I especially recall Spock recommending they make things like lapel buttons and bumper stickers promoting the idea of dying as a social duty. I can see why the script editors took THAT plot device out!
@markharris1125Ай бұрын
I'm in the UK, and well remember waiting for Star Trek to come to TV. There was a comic strip that was in a magazine called Century 21, based mostly on the Gerry Anderson universe. It initially didn't appeal to me - the ship looked weird and everyone called each other 'Mister' - but I was soon hooked. Gradually we began to see photos from the actual show, so excitement was mounting. But we had to wait until after the first Moon landings to see it. Needless to say, still hooked after all these years! Will write about the book once I've seen the whole video.
@markharris1125Ай бұрын
Have now checked, and it was just before the first Moon landing, 7 months before this book was published.
@DougVanDornАй бұрын
If you'd like a recommendation for another Star Trek novel that's very well-grounded in Trek lore and gets the characters right, I'd suggest "Enterprise!" by Vonda McIntyre. It's a story set at the time when Kirk first takes command of the Enterprise, and his first mission with his new ship and crew. It does contain some details that have since been rendered non-canonical by later series, such as explaining the skull-ridged and non-skull-ridged Klingons as being two different races of sentient Klingons, with the ridged variety being the oppressed minority within the story. There is one wonderful scene, though, which is very true to the original series and its characters -- during the reception after the change of command ceremony, when Pike hands over the center seat to Kirk, there's one of those lulls in conversation when one person's voice suddenly booms through the room, heard by all. We've all seen and heard it. In this case, it was Scotty, saying, with a distaste fueled by several glasses of Scotch, "Of course, Starfleet would be handin' its finest ship over to a greenhorn Captain!" Nice moment.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Ah, yes, "The First Adventure"! I've read it a few times, and it's one of the books I wanted to chat about before BookTrek ended, but didn't get to it. I've got a few things to say about that book. But hopefully next year. Thanks for watching!
@zoppieАй бұрын
In addition to all the great points that you brought up here, there is also the _non sequiter_ of why would a reversed Spock also suddenly develop an allegiance to the Klingons? Anti-hydrogen still behaves like hydrogen in every way. Anti-Spock would still think logically and no logic would lead him to conclude that working against the crew is smart or even justifiable. I get what Blish was shooting for. Could there be a more dangerous opponent for Kirk to face than his friend Spock? Like Kirk, he knows the ship and crew like the back of his hand. Unlike Kirk, he has a plethora of unique Vulcan gifts. It is a worthy idea, but it was handled very badly.
@jscottphillips503Ай бұрын
Yeah, there were a lot of flaws in the details. It really felt to me like Blish had a lot of good ideas, but just didn't know the characters as well as maybe he thought he did.