Book Review: Star Trek Log One by Alan Dean Foster

Star Trek: Log One by Alan Dean Foster
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Star Trek: Log One by Alan Dean Foster features three short stories adapted from "the best episodes" Star Trek: The Animated Series (TAS).  The three episodes are in order "Beyond the Farthest Star", "Yesteryear", and "One of Our Planets is Missing" which correspond with the first three episodes of TAS which makes one think they just adapted all the stories of TAS into books to make money, but that is another discussion all together.  The three stories are loosing connected as Foster presents them as a sequence of events transcribed from the Captain Logs of James T. Kirk, even though they are connected I feel its best to give a brief review of each story.

"Beyond the Farthest Star"- The longest story of the trio, it is also the slowest to develop.  The Enterprise gets caught in the pull of an uncharted black hole and barely are able to get into orbit when they encounter an dead alien vessel that has been in orbit for 3 million years.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty decide to explore the vessel and realize that it had been taken over by a malevolent energy being that transports over to the Enterprise when the four return then takes over the ship.  The standard crew versus creature-taken-over the ship trope then follows.  (2.5/5 stars)

"Yesteryear"- Whether all of TAS is considered canon or not, it seems this episode is considered canon.  The Enterprise returns to the Time Planet and the Guardian of Forever with several historians.  Kirk and Spock accompany one of the historians through the Guardian, but when they return no one recognizes Spock especially the Andorian first officer and Kirk's apparent best friend.  After examining the evidence it is deduced that Spock used the Guardian to return to Vulcan when he was seven and saved his younger self, posing as his cousin Selek.  A fair amount of the episode takes place on Vulcan following Spock and his younger self, giving insight into Spock's childhood along with Vulcan culture and philosophy.  This story is worth the buying the book alone. (5/5 stars)

"One of Our Planets is Missing"- Standard Enterprise encountering large space creature trope.  Well-written, but heavy handed with Vulcan telepathy as a deus-ex-machina.  (3/5 stars).

While the quality of the stories range from meh to great and some typos that should have been corrected during editing are present, Star Trek: Log One shows the continuing adventures of the original U.S.S. Enterprise and it's crew.  If you're new or long-time fan of the original televisions show I would recommend getting your hands on this book, especially for the story "Yesteryear".


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