Recent Used Book Finds

[Falconer]

Starfleet Hand Weapon Familiarization Handbook
cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380236530630

Picked it up for $5. Like many fan-made blueprints and technical manuals, this is anonymous and undated, but 1980 seems about right. It has the UFP logo from TMP. But otherwise the content seems to be 100% TOS. A neat book about 40 pages long, has full-page diagrams of many kinds of hand phasers and hand disruptors from TV. Federation, Klingon, Romulan, and Gorn included (which makes it more useful than SFTM in that regard). Not sure I'd actually use this information as it is highly technical, but the drawings are good.


Starfleet Academy Training Manual
www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/covers/900.jpg

Picked it up for $3. Also undated, but 1978 seems right since it has a bibliography at the end that includes the Concordance and a few other items from that year. Uses the UFP logo from SFTM. Author is John Wetsch ("Admiral John Wetsch, Chief of Operations" of course!). This one is only 12 pages, but it is packed with a lot of very basic information. Most of it can be found in one form or another in SFTM, I suspect, but some is unique. All good information every OST gamer should have at hand, so I think this was a good purchase for $3!


Star Trek: The Original Series Narrator's Toolkit (Last Unicorn Games)
memory-alpha.org/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series_-_Narrator%27s_Toolkit
www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_2345.html

Picked it up for $5. May have come with a GM Screen originally, but I only got the book. It was cheap, and my impression is this can be difficult to find and expensive. I may give a more detailed review later, but probably not, since it it is an interesting book but the gaming style it discusses at length is not up my alley (very railroady).

[Alex]

Your URL for the TOS Narrator's Guide is messed up. You need a url tag or the proboards software gives up when it sees certain characters like the colon.

I once found a mint/near mint copy of the LUG TOS rulebook and it was affordable so I picked it up. Never even looked at it. I know LUG is a dice pool and I don't like that mechanic, nor do I have anyone to play Trek with. So it's sitting on my shelf awaiting someone who wants to buy it (hopefully I can even make a buck). If anyone wants it, let me know.

[Falconer]

Yeah, I saw that the URL was messed up, but was too tired at the time to fix it. I still think all my users are smart enough to cut and paste. ;-)

[finarvyn]

You're lucky on these finds. Most of my used bookstores around here don't seem to carry much Trek stuff.

Usually I have to either hope I already own a copy or hunt through e-bay prices.

[Falconer]

It was definitely exciting to find some of those homemade typewritten manuals from the 70s. The thing is, they could have been photocopies from last month for all I know, but, that's okay (since I didn’t have to pay much for them)!

[finarvyn]

One of the used bookstores near me had a whole pile of old Tunnels & Trolls stuff for years. I always passed on it because I hadn't played the game. Once I discovered T&T I rushed back and it was all gone.

Timing. :-(

[theredpriest]

Seeing this thread put me in mind of the James Blish adaptations that I read back in junior high. I'd like to have those old paperbacks back, but I've just contented myself with ordering a compendium of #s 1 thru 12 on-line.

To my junior high brain, these books were terrific adaptations of the series' episodes, but I'd only read about the first half dozen of the bunch. Let's see if my adult brain concurs. Anyone else read these?

[blackbat242]

I read them back when they came out... and still have them... as well as James Blish's novel Spock Must Die! that he wrote while writing the episode adaptations (it was published in 1970, between books 3 & 4 of the adaptation series)*.

I also have the adaptations of the Star Trek cartoon series by Alan Dean Foster (Star Trek Log series).


The Blish versions are sometimes really close, and sometimes noticeably different in some aspect or another.

This is because he wrote from the "final" script (the one that was used to create sets and set up the shots, and which the actors got a couple of days before filming), not the "shooting" script (what was actually filmed).
Therefore, whatever changes got made "on the set" didn't make it into Blish's hands, and couldn't be put into the written story.




* I also have Mission to Horatius (1968) by Mack Reynolds... giving me the 1st & 2nd Star Trek novels ever written!


www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/series/star-trek/

[finarvyn]

I have my Blish 1-12 (plus Mudd's Angels), Spock Must Die!, and Foster Logs 1-10 all on my main bookshelf. I don't read 'em much anymore, but I remember them fondly from my youth!

I agree that the Foster adaptations were significantly better than the Blish ones. Foster took a few half-hour shows and built them into a book, whereas Blish took a half-dozen full-hour shows and made them into even thinner books.Indeed, Foster's last Log or two took a single episode and made it into a full novel! Blish's stuff was just too darned short, but it was the only Trek we had at the time.

I kind of wish that someone would go back and redo the Blish stories (Foster-ify them?) to make them
(1) follow the TV show better,
(2) add more details, such as actual dialog from the show, and
(3) maybe correct some of the inconsistencies.

I know that Blish often worked from pre-shooting scripts, but here it is 40 years later and we still don't have a good reading form of those episodes.

Jul 26, 2010 3:43:48 GMT -5 blackbat242 said:

I also have Mission to Horatius (1968) by Mack Reynolds... giving me the 1st & 2nd Star Trek novels ever written!

I'll ocnfess that that one was under my radar. Is it even worth tracking down and reading? (Reviews seem mediochre at best...)

[blackbat242]

It always seemed more a "teen book" version of Star Trek (for good reason)... it was published by Whitman as part of its TV-based novels (includes ones based on The Invaders, Hawaii Five-0, Rat Patrol, and Mission: Impossible) aimed at the "young adult readership".

There is a synopsis and review here www.well.com/user/sjroby/mth.html which describes it as follows:

Mission to Horatius is well written, with few concessions to the young adult readership for whom this book was intended.
.....
The feel of the book is much like a first season episode, as the junior officers and crew receive their fair share of attention.
.....
This book doesn't stretch the boundaries of the Trek universe, nor does it offer insights into the inner lives of the characters. What it does do is offer a light diversion, a quick read. It's not a neglected masterpiece, but as an artifact of the time when the original series was still on the air, it creates a moment of nostalgia for a time when the Star Trek phenomenon was a simpler thing, and the Star Trek universe was a simpler place.

In other words, "fast food" Trek, not "Shakespeare in space".

It is still available, as in early 1999, Pocket Books published a new facsimile edition. But be warned... the reprint was priced like a regular hardcover novel, not like a typical kids' hardcover like the original was. The new edition cost as much as the going rate for a good copy of the original at that time.

[Falconer]

Alright, I see a lot of old Star Trek novels at used bookstores, and one of these days I ought to pick one up. We’ve had threads about it before, but please give me ONLY ONE title that would be good to get my feet wet with that you think will best be able to sell me on the concept of Trek novels!

[blackbat242]

The Final Reflection, John M. Ford

TOS Klingons... before TOS.

It explains a bunch of things that later Trek never did, like why the movie/TNG Klingons are knobby-forehead ones instead of the smooth-skulled version, and does so convincingly.

[finarvyn]

Jul 30, 2010 3:22:50 GMT -5 blackbat242 said:

TOS Klingons... before TOS.

I assume you mean in the years before TOS in the timeline, right? Because clearly the book was written long after TOS was aired.

It's really hard for me to pick one TOS novel. They all start to run together. I think, however, that I would suggest one of the Bantam Trek books, since they were done back in the 1970's. The more modern books seem to have a more global perspective, whereas the old Bantam books were very TOS focused (since that was the only Trek out there at the time.)

Spock Must Die (James Blish) is of course a classic. I seem to remember The Galactic Whirlpool (David Gerrold) as being pretty good, but I haven't read it in decades.

Be warned, however, that my perspective is doubtless slanted by the fact that I read these books as a teenager, and what I enjoyed back then may be total crap in retrospect.

[aramis]

Some of my favorites: Return to Yesteryear, Price of the Phoenix, Fate of the Phoenix.