Star Trek Log

Title:	Star Trek Log
Creator:	Alan Dean Foster
Date(s):	1974–1978
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Trek: The Animated Series
Language:	English
External Links:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Star Trek Log is a series of ten novelizations based on, and inspired by, episodes of Star Trek: The Animated Series. They were written by Alan Dean Foster and edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Most of the LOGS contained several episode scripts per book, which Foster attempted to tie together into a cohesive story. LOGS #7 and #10 contained only one episode a piece.

A similar pro work James Blish's novelizations of based on Star Trek: TOS.

Extra Canon

Adaptations of the episodes often included extra scenes and backstory featuring M'Ress and her family. The Logs also suggest that Caitians share distant ancestry with the kzin.

Cites

• review in Menagerie 4
• reviews in Probe 2 and 1
• review The Hole in the Deck Gang Newsletter 4 was published in July 1974
• -- fan's comment on the pro-book "Spock Messiah" -- she pronounces it better than the title would suggest, better than "Spock Must Die," better than Alan Dean Foster's Log books, but that it will be disappointment to Spock fans as that character is barely in it -- from Star Trek Action Group 20 (1976)
• review in Fesarius 2 (1977)

• writers not being able to get a monetary compensation whereas the fan artists do. Well, there is always the idea since, it is done at conventions with other written forms, such as scripts, that maybe some people might be interested in the original manuscript, or even the first rough draft. (For example, although this is not a fan-written item: I managed to get the complete rough draft of Alan Dean Foster's Log 10 for $22.00 -- $2 over the minimum bid price, and though this isn't the best MS in the world, it is rather valuable. It just wasn't going at the right con for that sort of thing. - Atavachron 2 was published in July 1978

Fan Comments

1975

Trash in trekfiction isn't a criterion; fanzines publish perfectly horrible SF trash every year. There is NO WAY to avoid it. Some fanzine editors won't touch fan fiction and some seem to dote on the worst kind. Nobody in fandom has the right to put down ST fandom for that!...Trekfiction, per se, is probably not going to become acceptable to SF fandom, simply because it is still basically a copy of someone else's universe, and copying the scripts and story ideas of someone else. Originality counts, remember. No matter how good the Log One stories get (and they show no signs of it, yet) or the Blish things could have gotten (and they were dreadful), they are still copies of GR's universe, and not original stories.

1976

Alan Dean Foster has shown us what can be done with animated scripts. His LOGs may not be deathless SF, but a hundred times better than what Bantam has tried to pull off.

Save your money for a good fanzine.

It is a great pleasure to sit down to read something new and fresh for a change for after awhile, one does grow rather tired of the James Blish and Alan Dean Foster books and at times, even the seventy-nine episodes. The stories in The New Voyages are dramatic and thrilling, and several are even able to penetrate deep inside the characters for the their true feelings and actions.

One thing which surprised me, I had read the "Log One' book before I saw the episodes and I was pleased by the way Alan Dean Foster had kept to the programme. What did not please me was the introduction by the original writer of several pieces of equipment which wore not in the original series. (Like the Bridge Defence System and the Life Support Belts.)

About Foster's novelizations of the animated. Well, in Log 1, I think you have to give him credit for trying very hard to make one of the most ridiculous ST episodes halfway tolerable. I think he needed a novel length book to do it, though I'm really unsure as to whether I want to praise him for that effort, or scream at him for using what is basically a cop-out ending[snipped] However, I do think Foster is doing a much better job on a creative level than Blish did. He's done more with a lot less. Though I have found several times he seems to get out of character, I find the Logs more readable and enjoyable than Blish's efforts. Log 8 is now out, and this one, which is again one episode converted a novel, is not too good - he adapted "Eye of the Beholder," which was an enjoyable episode , and added on a lot of stuff unneeded, and also inaccurate - he has a life form, intelligent too, and claims it is the first one found by the Federation . WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO THE HORTA? I mean, that was silicon , and intelligent , and to me, it was a lot interesting an episode - better done, too, dramawise, than Foster's ideas.

I like Alan Dean of the already too short (1/2 hour) episodes : I mean , look at what Blish did. He hacked and shortened the live episodes down to mere synopses of what was shown on television. As for Log 7, Foster adapted the episode very skillfully, extending it 1/3 of a book to 1/2 of a book. I feel the original portion of Log 7 was rather plot-less. A pretty bad story this time. If Foster can write ST as well as he can write original sf, if tries, then we'll have some good reading ahead.

1977

There's a transcript of a speech by Alan Dean Foster, about some of what he's done and the why of Star Trek Log books. Ah-huh. In all fairness, read his straight SF books; they're not bad. T-N is probably going to be a collector's item, as soon as it gafiates. Don't wait too long to get one.

1978

I didn't think Sondra & Myrna handled the sex changes in "Procrustean Petard" very well, and I couldn't help but think that Alan Dean Foster's own version of sex exchange in "Log 10" was highly superior and very, very well handled.