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Star Trek Turns 40!
By Tim Davis, September 2006

All right, Star Trek fans, you may now begin the celebration!

The original (though much too brief) television series hit the small screen forty years ago. Of course, you Star Trek fans already know that.

After the many films (perhaps too many), the television spin-offs (perhaps too many), and the numerous novelized versions of the Star Trek adventures (again, perhaps too many), the legendary Star Trek Logs hit the book stores (but not too many public or academic library shelves) more than thirty years ago.

But, of course, you Star Trek fans know all about that, too.

Now, however, after having been out-of-print for more than a decade, the classic Star Trek Logs (and Star Trek: Starfleet Technical Manual, which will get further mention in another moment) are again available to irrepressible Star Trek fans throughout the United States, with new introductions from author Alan Dean Foster.

Based on scripts from the commendable animated television series, the Logs were phenomenally popular (if not critical) successes when originally published and sold. Now, with Star Trek's popularity showing no signs of abatement (especially with a new generation of fanatics eager to devour anything and everything connected with the crew of the USS Enterprise), this newly published series of books arrives just in time to show up on fans' wishful letters to Santa Claus.

Logs One and Two includes Beyond the Farthest Star, Yesteryear, One of Our Planets is Missing, The Survivor, The Lorelei Signal, and The Infinite Vulcan. Logs Three and Four includes Once Upon a Planet, Mudd's Passion, The Magicks of Megas-tu, The Terratin Incident, Time Trap, and More Tribbles, More Troubles. Logs Five and Six includes The Ambergris Element, The Pirates of Orion, Jihad, Albtross, The Practical Joker, and How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth. Logs Seven and Eight includes The Counter-Clock Incident and The Eye of the Beholder. Logs Nine and Ten includes Bem and Slaver Weapon.

I would give you brief glimpses into the story-lines of each of the foregoing tales, but Star Trek fans already know all the stories! My restatements would be redundant. And I'm much too practical to bother you with redundancies.

Here's more news: You can further celebrate the 40th anniversary of Star Trek by getting your fully illustrated handbook 'that every Starfleet Cadet must have': Starfleet Technical Manual (researched and compiled by Franz Joseph). You have to see this to believe it!

There is much to admire and enjoy in these new books. If you're an original Star Trek fan, you may be getting so old (like me) that you need these books to revive your memory. Or you may be a middle-generation fan who vaguely remembers scrounging around used books stores in a frustrating search for copies of the originally published editions of the Star Trek Logs. Or you may be so young that you simply cannot believe that Captain Kirk is the same fellow who is now working as a lawyer in a television drama while also moonlighting as a pitchman for discount travel services.

In any event, this new collection is well worth your attention. So, enjoy these books, and Live Long and Prosper!
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