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reviewed Star Trek Log Five by Alan Dean Foster (Ballantine / science fiction -- 24532)

Alan Dean Foster: Star Trek Log Five (Paperback, 1975, Ballantine Books) 4 stars

Adaptations of the Star Trek animated series episodes "The Ambergris Element", "The Pirates of Orion", …

Fun adaptions of pretty standard ST plots

4 stars

The first two stories are your basic "race-for-a-cure" tales (Kirk and Spock are transformed into water breathers in "The Ambergris Element", and Spock needs a rare drug in "Pirates of Orion") while the third is a ragtag-team-has-to-pull-together-to-save-the-galaxy yarn ("Jihad"). Nothing wrong with any of them, but nothing exceptional either. Foster uses a few pages at the beginning to flesh out the backstory of Lt. M'ress, the catlike communications officer, but it doesn't tie in with the stories. I get the distinct impression Foster got the scripts and didn't see the animation, since physical descriptions of alien races have very little in common with how they looked onscreen. I still love the Star Trek Fosterverse -- it's canon unto itself.