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Star Trek: The Animated Series Logs Three And Four by Alan Dean Foster
01/03/2007 . Source: Eamonn Murphy 
pub: Del Rey/Ballantine Books. 400 page enlarged paperback. Price: $13.95 (US), $19.95 (CAN). ISBN: 0-345-49582-9. Buy Star Trek: The Animated Series Logs Three And Four in the USA - or Buy Star Trek: The Animated Series Logs Three And Four in the UK  none;" alt="" src="../../../pics/StarTrekLogs3&4.jpg" />
'Mudd's Passion' from a script by Stephen Kandel features the fat crook peddling love potions. Mudd doesn't work so well in text, a tribute to the actor who played him, I suppose. The story trots along okay but requires Nurse Christine Chapel to behave both foolishly and unethically, especially for a medical professional. Would she really administer a love potion to Spock without his consent? There are really big monsters, too. Another indication that writers were encouraged to use the visible possibilities of animation, perhaps to the detriment of the scripts.
'The Magicks Of Megas-Tu' is from a script by Larry Brody, a writer who possessed the essential skill of knowing his market. This story is tailor-made to please Gene Roddenberry. It starts with the Enterprise exploring the heart of the galaxy to investigate its origins and ends up with them discovering the roots of some old Earth myths. Trekkies will remember the episode when they met Apollo.
This might have been titled 'Who Mourns For Pan?' Fosters poetic descriptions make a significant contribution to the cosmological sequences at the start. Animated, this episode probably didn't look like much but one can imagine it done brilliantly nowadays with computer graphics. This story was a pleasure after the mild disappointment of the first two.
'The Terratin Incident' adapts a script by Paul Schneider. On a routine mapping mission, the ship is bombarded with a form of unknown radiation which progressively shrinks the organic matter on board. The incredible shrinking Enterprise crew! The inorganic hardware stays the same size. Happily their uniforms are woven of 'algae based xenylon' so the kiddies were spared naked Starfleet personnel in the TV episode. The various crises this situation provokes are neatly handled and the final solution is well done.
In 'Time Trap', from a script by Joyce Perry, the Enterprise goes into the Delta Triangle, a region of space where ships have mysteriously disappeared for centuries. To make it a triangle was a bit of an obvious parallel but perhaps Perry was hoping Barry Manilow would do the soundtrack: 'The Delta Triangle, it makes ships disappear...' You never know. The Enterprise is attacked by a Klingon battle-cruiser and both ships vanish into another dimension.
Here they find all the disappeared ships of many races. Stuck together they have learned to live in harmony and are nearly immortal for time passes differently here. It's a sort of paradise. Naturally, Kirk has no truck with such places - a recurring theme of the original Trek - and wants to get back to the real world but to do so he must team up with the Klingons, who, naturally, hatch a treacherous plan to destroy him. It's another good story.
'More Tribbles, More Troubles' is from a script by David Gerrold who wrote 'The Trouble With Tribbles', one of the most popular live shows. Here he recombines the same ingredients, Klingons, grain, Cyrano Jones and cute fluffy animals, to produce an entertaining light hearted story.
Four good yarns, two okay. In an introduction Alan Dean Foster tells us how novelisations are done and justifies the process. It's not necessary here because I think his neat, sometimes poetic, writing definitely enhances the stories. The editor of this august electronic organ assures me that Foster had little time to write these adaptations originally as they were rushed out to suit the television schedule. Maybe he had more time, maybe he settled into a rhythm but the writing seems better in this second volume.
Eamonn Murphy
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