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While working in the school library as a student aide, I happened upon a small set of books. These books were merely titled "Star Trek", but were numbered from 1 to 10. Unfortunatly, the library doesn't have Books #1, 3, 9, or 10. But, in each book, are 6 short stoties of the episodes of TOS. But I noticed that some of these stories vary slightly.
For instance, the story of "The Doomsday Machine" features Commodore Brand Decker of the USS Constellation.
The story for "Space Speed" says that the SS Botany Bay is DZ-100 Class, and that the DZ-100 class fell from service in 2018.
I've yet to look through all of these books, but I'll be looking for any small tidbits that have slipped through.
------------------ "The things hollow--it goes on forever--and--oh my God!--it's full of stars!" -David Bowman's last transmission back to Earth, 2001: A Space Odyssey
posted
You're talking about the James Blish books, right? There were eleven of these that included adaptations of TOS episodes. On some of the episodies, Blish worked from early drafts of the scripts, so the adaptations are quite different from the actual filmed episodes. Roddenberry rewrote most of the first season scripts himself, so the Blish books provide a good look at what the scripts were like originally. Some of Blish's adaptations also include scenes that were filmed but cut out of the final version.
Talking about those Blish books takes me back to the mid-Seventies, when I first discovered TOS while in junior high. I couldn't get enough of TOS and bought all the Blish books, as well as the Alan Dean Foster novelizations of the animated series. If there are any Trek fans here from way back then, perhaps you remember some of the very first Pocket Trek novels such as "Spock Must Die!" (also written by Blish) , "Spock, Messiah", "World Without End" and "The Starless World".
posted
Does anyone have the novelization of "The Squire of Gothos"? Does it say whether there really is a ship named Discovery, or if this was just a case of completely nonsensical grammar?
------------------ "To make the merry-go-round go faster, so that everyone needs to hang on tighter, just to keep from being thrown to the wolves." -They Might Be Giants, "They Might Be Giants"
posted
Kirk's dialogue in the novelization is: "Lt. Uhura, notify the discovery of this planet on subspace radio." So obviously, there is no starship Discovery. I don't know why the idea of a Discovery ever came up, anyway. Watching the episode, I always understood Kirk to be referring to the discovery of the planet in what was supposed to be a space desert. But some people seem always to be looking for any excuse to postulate the existence of a new ship.
Here's a little trivia from the Blish novelizations. "Charlie X" was originally called "Charlie's Law", and "The Man Trap" was originally called "The Unreal McCoy".
posted
Well, the thing is, "notify the discovery" means absolutely nothing. The discovery is not a tangible object. You can't walk up to the discovery and tell it "We've found a planet". If Kikr can talk to a discovery, something is very, very wrong.
Now, he could, of course, notify someone about the discovery. But, if you use the word "notify", the direct object is going to be the person/thing to whom you are speaking when you do the notifying. Since "discovery" is the direct object of the sentence, it's the thing they are talking to. What else would they be talking to that's named "Discovery", other than a ship, or something comparable?
------------------ "To make the merry-go-round go faster, so that everyone needs to hang on tighter, just to keep from being thrown to the wolves." -They Might Be Giants, "They Might Be Giants"
posted
I'm well aware that the dialogue, as is, is grammatically incorrect. Incorrect grammar notwithstanding, I always understood the line to mean that Kirk wanted someone to be notified about the discovery of the planet, since the crew had just made that discovery of the planet in what was supposedly a star desert.
The word "notify" is the word that's in question. It should have been something like "broadcast" or "transmit", because "notify" implies someone being notified. But as I said, I always understood what the line actually meant, and never even thought about a ship named Discovery. So why did those who postulated a Discovery understand the line that way? Because that's the way they are thinking, always on the look-out for a new ship.
posted
Here's another bit of Blish trivia. In his novelization of "The Conscience of the King", Lt. Kevin Reilly appears as Lt. Robert Daiken instead. The character was originally conceived as Daiken in the script, but after actor Bruce Hyde was hired to play the part and someone remembered he had played Reilly in "The Naked Time", Daiken was changed to Reilly.
posted
Here's another bit of Blish trivia. In the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais?", there's a scene toward the end that can be interpreted as Apollo raping Lt. Palamas. Apollo gets very angry when she spurns him, grows in size and towers over her, and Palamas seems to be pinned to the ground. In fact, rape is exactly what the scene is about. In Blish's adaptation of the script, the episode doesn't end with Kirk saying, "Would it have hurt us, I wonder, just to have gathered a few laurel leaves?" the way the filmed episode ends. There's an additional tag scene back on the bridge of the Enterprise in which McCoy informs Kirk that Palamas is pregnant with Apollo's child. This scene was actually filmed, but it was left out of the episode's final cut, probably because NBC balked at the rape issue.
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