THE CREW OF THE ENTERPRISE CHASE BUTTERFLIES

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 7 “The Winged Dreamers”

Author: Jennifer Guttridge, with an introduction by DeForest Kelley  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 37

Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Second Season of the Animated Series   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Langely        Lieutenant Kyle         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Crewman Caros Durban                 unnamed security guards      

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed shuttlecraft

Planets: unnamed planet

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The Enterprise is exploring a strange new world. It is a M-Class planet, right in its star’s goldilocks zone. Yet, no intelligent life has developed on the planet.  As they walk along the planet’s surface this little fact has the trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy confused. In a short while Kirk and McCoy head back to the ship via the transporter, Spock stays behind to supervise things on the surface.

Just exploring the planet!

                At this point members of the crew start to hallucinate.  Their dreams seem to be manifesting in reality.  Forty of them suddenly stop reporting in and go missing.  When Captain Kirk becomes aware of this on the Enterprise, he orders all crew members currently on the planet to get back to the ship and cancels all shore parties.  Things go from bad to worse.  A crewman dies and McCoy can’t tell what it was that killed him.  Mr. Spock finds the missing members of the crew, but they flat out refuse to return to the ship and they don’t think Spock should be allowed to go back either.

Dreams becoming real

                Kirk and McCoy try to transport back down to the surface but massive power failures have caused the ship’s transporters to go offline.  This forces the two officers to use the shuttlecraft, which doesn’t bother McCoy because he hates the transporter anyway.  When they get to the planet and they find Spock unconscious but McCoy is able to revive him.  At this point both the Captain and the Doctor start to hallucinate.  Only Spock seems to be immune, but they don’t know how long that will last for.  So, it is decided that the best they could do would be to get on the shuttlecraft, get off this planet, and get back on to the ship.  This works although Kirk almost ruins everything trying to take the helm controls away from Spock when he hallucinates that the Enterprise is on fire.

On fire! Maybe not!

                They manage to get on the ship but find the power of illusions hasn’t been stopped. At one point Kirk is given the illusion that they have already won and all the missing have been returned before Spock brings him to reality.  They determine that there is a native species that is a collective consciousness and that they were simply caught in the middle of it.  At first, they thought this may have been an aquatic species but they determine it was actually this planet’s version of butterflies.  They negotiate with the butterfly collective.  This insures peace and the return of the missing crew.  The adventure is over.

 Additional thoughts: This was an interesting little story.  If the episodes “Shore Leave” and "This Side of Paradise” had a baby this story is it what probably look like.  Like the former, the crew on shore leave are on an apparently empty planet and all of a sudden their dreams start coming to life.  Like the later, the crew gets addicted to the planet and munity in order to stay.

                Now I was a little taken back at the beginning when Kirk and Spock were confused about no intelligent life on the planet. Now I remember the old saying that if the life of the Earth put onto a 24-hour clock then all of human history would be in the final two minutes to midnight.  So how do Kirk and Spock don’t know they have shown up on this planet three minutes to midnight? 

Fun times! But this time its butterflies!

                Of course we learn that there is life here just not the kind we would expect to run into.  This could have been one of those great Star Trek moments like “The Devil in the Dark.”  Where we come to know and respect life radically different from our own and be able to see similarities as well as differences.  However, the whole thing is ruined by Spock and McCoy speculating what life form on the planet would be best to evolve in order to get or the smart butterflies.

                I thought it was very ironic that shortly Captain Kirk is given the illusion that he has already unexpectedly won and his crew returns, a paragraph later he really does unexpectedly win and has his crew return.  It was almost as if the writer got board with her own story and just wanted to end it now. It was not a clean stop however.        

Should it be canon: Yes, I don’t see any problem with this story becoming part the official voyages of the USS Enterprise.  The story has flaws but so don’t many episodes.

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 3 of 5

SPOCK BECOMES A GROWN-UP BY RUNNING WITH THE ANIMALS

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 6 “The Hunting”

Author: Doris Beetem, with an introduction by Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 17

Historian’s Note: Sometime after Second Season of the Animated Series   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”                           Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets: Rhinegelt

My Spoiler filled summary and review: Once again it is shore leave time for the crew of the Enterprise.  This time, unlike our last adventure that had Dr. McCoy practically dragging a workaholic Captain Kirk off the bridge, it is the Captain practically dragging a workaholic Dr. McCoy out of sickbay.  Kirk is able to lure McCoy out with one little fact.  Mr. Spock is also taking shore leave.  Typically, the Vulcan Science Officer, likes to spend his down time meditating and conserving his energy in rest.  He has criticized in the past the human need to run around in the grass using energy rather than conserving it. This time Mr. Spock has taken out a hunting license.

Spock needed drugs to allow him to walk in the grass before

                This arouses McCoy’s suspicions and he heads down to Spock’s quarters to see if he would like some company and to his surprise Spock accepts as he is required to have a companion.  For Spock this is more than a simple hunt it is the scared Vulcan ritual called the mok farr.  It is a coming-of-age ritual, meaning that despite having a career in Starfleet where he has risen to become First Officer of the Flag Ship of the Fleet with the rank of commander, he is not by Vulcan standards an adult.  The reason Spock gives is his human half delayed his telepathic abilities and by the time they came to full force he had left Vulcan for Starfleet. His job is not simply to hunt the animal, in fact he brings no weapons with him, but to find an apex predator and perform a mind meld. 

boyhood pet who he didn't mind meld with 

                McCoy and Spock go on their way and McCoy witnesses the hunt for the owl tiger, as it is called. Spock is going to have to defeat this creature with his Vulcan strength in order to perform the mind meld.  Spock is successful in the attempt however the impact of sharing a mind with such a beast programed by nature to kill has serious effect on Spock.  He begins to assume the identity of the animal.  Even as McCoy gets them separated Spock seems lost as the beast.  He runs wild like a wild man who was raised by wolves.

                It gets bad as Spock acts violently towards McCoy and chases another animal into the wilderness.  Things get so bad that McCoy pulls a projector on out of his kit to record his last message to Kirk telling to make Spock forgive himself for what he might do in this state to McCoy.  McCoy says in the message that he brought this all on himself. The noise lures Spock back to him, he attacks but the Vulcan is distracted by the projector and slowly his sense come back to him.  The two officers return to the Enterprise and for Spock its his first time arriving there as an adult. 

Productive end

   

Additional thoughts: This is fun little story.  For all their commitment to logic it is amazing that the Vulcans will have the most outlandish rituals tied to their culture.  Although it is easy to tell the difference between an adult and a child most of the time the actual moment when someone stops being a child and becomes an adult is not so easy.  As someone who works with teenagers, I can attest to that, some of them a very mature almost indistinguishable from an adult, while others are very immature, and others are in the middle.  By “mature” I am referring to both mental and physical traits.  Some societies put as a strict number “you are an adult if you are X-age.”  Currently that age in my society is 18 (sort of).  However, if I have a random mixed group of 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds I would not be able to sort them by age without them telling me.   Yet one is supposed to be an adult while the other is a child. Then there are societies that would have their children complete a rite of passage to become an adult.  Sometimes this is a task the other times it’s just a ceremony. 

Spock in Amok Time

  

                We first learned in the episode “Journey to Babel” that Spock was not on speaking terms with his father because of his career choice.  In addition to that his mother Amanda talks with Spock about his childhood and that he was relentlessly bullied as a young child for not being “Vulcan” enough.  This was also confirmed in the episode “Yesteryear” when Spock journeyed to this past the audience got to see it upfront.  I wrote a while back that Spock joins Starfleet and surrounds himself humans not to embrace his humanity but instead to reconfirm his Vulcan-ness.

Very disappointed in Spock

                Spock says in this story that his telepathic abilities had developed late, he doesn’t mention it but you can see that is something else his bullies would torment him over.  “He is so human he can’t even mind-meld.”  The fact he left Vulcan and couldn’t complete this coming-of-age ceremony, the mok farr, would be even more torment coming in the form Vulcan gossip for him.  His old bullies could at best still see their old and clearly grown classmate as still a child, and at worst view him as a type of adult, a human one.

T'Pring and her chosen

                You would have to wonder if this would also have impacted T’Pring’s decision to abandon Spock to Stonn.  She said it was because she didn’t want to be the consort of a legend, but maybe that was T’Pring’s way of being nice.  Perhaps what she wanted to say is “Sorry Spock, I need a real man one who can mok farr before he can pon farr.”  That would have been cruel.        

This my weird way of being nice!

Should it be canon: Yes, I would love for this story to be added to the Star Trek lore.  For all the reasons I talk about above, especially with T’Pring. 

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5

KIRK GETS IN TROUBLE AT A BAR AND GOES TO JAIL

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 5 “The Face on the Barroom Floor”

Author: Eleanor Arnason and Ruth Berman, with an introduction by George Takei  

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 23

Historian’s Note: Sometime after The Counter-Clock Incident and before the Motion Picture.   

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock              Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Palmer        Lieutenant Kyle         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Captain Antonio Perez        Second Navigator Lo Chah         Renee            Bud      Morrie Singh          Renee’s two unnamed friends       unnamed bartender     unnamed law enforcement officers

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Deneb Queen, Starfarer

Planets: Krasni’s Folly

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins as the crew of the Enterprise is about to embark on some overdue shore leave.  Kirk, as is typical, is to duty obsessed to want to engage in the practice.  The Captain would rather not engage in anything that is not mission related that takes him away from his precious ship.  He has to be almost dragged by Dr. McCoy to the planet. 

Yes, Jim you must go on shore leave

While on the planet, called “Krasni’s Folly” for reasons we never discover, Kirk wonders around with McCoy and Sulu.  At one point they come across a samurai outfit that both Sulu and Kirk admire.  Sulu talks about buying it, but Kirk doesn’t think he find anywhere to wear it. McCoy find three women for them to hang out with and one named Renee.  Kirk gets bored with Renne, leaves his shipmates, and goes and buys the samurai outfit. 

At least Sulu can have a good time

Kirk puts his captain’s uniform in a storage locker and proceeds to another bar.  In this bar Kirk pretends to be a crewman of the Deneb Queen.  That turns out to be a mistake as no one here likes people from that ship. Eventually a drunken brawl breaks out that Kirk mostly avoids but the authorities show up an arrest everyone.  As everyone at the ‘police station’ thinks Kirk is a spacefarer who has gotten in trouble for the first time and not use to how things worked. He tries to explain that his captain won’t come to bail him out like everyone else here because he is his own captain.  No one believes him so he is stuck.

                While this is all going on the Enterprise gets contacted by a ship called the Starfarer.  The Starfarer is a passenger ship that is suffering from a serious malfunction and they are now losing life support.  Spock is forced to cancel shore leave and bring everyone back to the ship, but they can’t find the Captain.  A frantic search begins. 

                Back on the planet Kirk arranges an escape by using supreme tactics and fighting skills to assault a guard and then quickly leave the premises with some other prisoners.  Kirk makes his way back to the ship, looking a bit ridiculous, and they leave to save the Starfarer.  

Additional thoughts: I must admit I didn’t really like this one.  It’s supposed to be a comedy, but I don’t find it to be that funny.  Last I checked Starfleet officers are bound by the laws of the planets they are visiting, particularly worlds with space travel that interact with the Federation.  The episode “Wolf in the Fold” had much to be desired but it at least established that important concept, and it was repeated in the episode “Albatross” in the Animated Series.  

                I just don’t like the idea of Kirk who was arrested in a brawl deciding that the local law enforcement on a planet that Starfleet allows shore leave on and is a center of intergalactic commerce, is too inconvenient and bureaucratic to deal with so he breaks out and runs a way.  When they are giving him a chance to contact his ship just explain that he is a Starfleet officer out of uniform and his captain is Kirk on the Enterprise.  The locals would probably be more likely to believe that then the bold (but true claim) that he is Captain Kirk.  The break out might be justified if Kirk knew about the plight of the Starfarer and felt he was the only one who could rescue them.  Of course, Kirk should then come back to settle things with the planet.

                The only parts I liked about this story was Kirk buying the samurai outfit and the captains of the Deneb Queen and Starfarer both being friends of his.  Other than that, this story fell short.

Should it be canon: No, for the reasons listed above. I would rather not have Kirk violating local laws and customs on purpose because he thinks they are inconvenient and have it be official canon. 

Cover Art: What I said in the review of the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”

  

Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5

 

THE STARS OF STAR TREK BEAM UP TO THE ENTERPRISE

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 4 “Visit to a Weird Planet--Revisited”

Author: Ruth Berman, with an introduction by Majel Barrett

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 16

Historian’s Note: Sometime between 1967-1969  

Cast of Characters:  William Shatner         Leonard Nimoy              DeForest Kelley              James Doohan    Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Vincent McEveety         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov     Gene L. Coon        Commodore Kor      Unnamed Klingon Officer

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, IKS Klothos

Planets: Earth the Real One, unexplored planet name in dispute

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The story begins on the set of a Star Trek episode.  I don’t know what episode exactly but it is one that is directed by Vincent McEveety.  Shatner trips getting off the transporter pad upsetting McEveety as it ruins the take.  They start over and get back on the transporter pad and that is when it happens. A strange feeling goes over the three actors as unbeknownst to them they are being beamed up to the actual USS Enterprise! 

                As soon as Shatner and Kelley step of the transporter pad, they know something is up.  They are now in an enclosed room and there are no cameras to be scene.  Nimoy is a little late to come around, he thinks this is a prank by Bob Justman and gets openly annoyed when “Jimmy” refuses to break character and continue to talk in his Scottish accent.  Shatner and Kelley force Nimoy out of the transporter room and into the corridor.  It’s at that point Nimoy realizes what his co-stars do.  That somehow and someway they are aboard the USS Enterprise for real.

Three actors on a big adventure.

                The three actors struggle but find sickbay and when they get there, they start talking about what has happened.  How did they get here and how do they get home?  Then they are called to the bridge they are being attacked by the Klingons.  Shatner has Uhura hail the Klingons and when they respond the actor finds himself face to face with Kor.  Kor tells the man he thinks is Kirk that they are claiming the planet for the Klingon Empire.  Since the Federation has the right to file a dispute that reduces the need to come up with a solution right away. 

                This convinces the three of them that something must be done about their situation.  While on the bridge Nimoy had to excuse himself before he broke into uncontrollable laughter.  He was also scared that someone might get too close to him and see that is not really a Vulcan and that his ears are fake. Shatner and Kelley didn’t have that problem since their characters are human.  However, Kelley doesn’t have any real medical knowledge to help if someone gets hurt. Only Shatner is comfortable to still “play Captain Kirk” for an unexpecting audience. 

Shatner's comfortable while the other two are in trouble

                  The three actors choose to confide in Mr. Scott.  Scott arrives armed with a phaser because is convinced the three of them are Klingon spies. They however convince him by reminding the Chief Engineer of the events from “Mirror, Mirror.”  Scott is convinced they are who they say they are, and a little concerned that he is now in command.  He realizes Shatner needs to continue to pretend to be Captain Kirk because the Klingons might want to speak with him.

                The three actors return to the bridge and there they brainstorm with Uhura, Chekov, and Sulu about what the Klingons could want with the planet.  The planet appears worthless however when Nimoy notices there are still tides on a moonless planet.  With an investigation the six of them discover that there is a new cloaking device that is hiding planet’s moon.  Since the Klingons got their cloaking technology from the Romulans they must be in on this as well. 

                Scotty has found away to swap the actors back to their universe with their counterparts.  The three of them wish Scott good-bye and good luck with the mission.  The three strangers pointed the crew of the Enterprise in the right direction but now it was time for the real Kirk, Spock, and McCoy to take over.   Back in the real world, Shatner tries to tell Gene Coon about their adventure but angers McEveety when his action once again ruins the take.

Additional thoughts: Well, that was a fun little story.  Apparently according to the introduction this one is a sort of play on another story from the fanzines that came around in the 1970s, titled “Visit to a Strange Planet.”  In the earlier story it was Kirk, Spock, and McCoy who came to the real world.  I have never read that original story in its entirety.  To be honest I don’t see how that wouldn’t turn into a horror story.  Kirk and crew discovering that they are fiction.  In this story when they explain their origins to Scotty he doesn’t completely understand what they are telling him avoiding that pitfall there.  However, if Captain Kirk showed up in the real world, wouldn’t everyone just assume William Shatner had gone insane?

                I do like how each actor responded differently to the situation. Leonard Nimoy had the hardest time coping.  If someone got too close, they could tell his ears were fake, that he didn’t have Spock’s scientific knowledge nor his Vulcan strength.  Not to mention the fact he has to be “on” all the time and not show any emotion what so ever.  Nimoy is deprived of the escape of the word: “cut!”  At one-point Nimoy has to remove himself from situation in order to prevent himself from laughing.  I love when he tried to check Spock’s viewer at his station and saw nothing since he didn’t know how to turn it on.  Although he did figure out how to work his tricorder with the help of the ship’s computer.  Kelley has the problem of no actual medical knowledge but it doesn’t come up. Shatner is actually at ease and slips into his role of Captain Kirk quite easily including handing a Klingon negotiation.

Klingons

                Speaking of the Klingons I thought it was great when Shatner, while talking with Kor, notices Kor’s assistant looks a little different despite clearly being a Klingon.  He then realizes that the other Klingon looks more like the one from “Friday’s Child” than Kor and his “Errand of Mercy” Klingons.  Fred Phillips, the make-up artist, had errored when he forgot to include the bushy eyebrows and facial hair on his second time doing the Klingons that he had done on the first.  It appears the look of Klingons has always been a problem for Star Trek.

               

Also a Klingon!

The only thing I think I would change is I would have the actors come up with a solution to the Enterprise’s problem by just remembering that they had already read the script and therefore know what the answer is. Then they just come up with an excuse to give it the crew.       

Should it be canon: No, I am sorry I love the story but I think it would be a bad idea for the suspension of disbelief if it were confirmed as a matter of canon that Star Trek wasn’t real.  Having the characters realize they are just characters in a TV show would be a terrible thing going forward. Therefore, I think it should it remain just a fun side story to enjoy.

Cover Art: What I said after the first story: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5

SPOCK GETS A MAGICAL GIRLFRIEND, KIND OF

 

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages – Story 3 “The Enchanted Pool”

Author: Marcia Ericson, with an introduction by Nichelle Nichols

Publication Date: 3/1976

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 20

Historian’s Note: Sometime after the second season of The Animated Series and before The Motion Picture.  

Cast of Characters:  Captain James T. Kirk         Commander Spock                 Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Lieutenant Phyllida Gains             Lieutenant Leslie         Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Crewman Bemis           Crewman Latrobe        

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, USS Yorktown NCC-1717, numerous shuttlecraft not identified.

Planets: Mevinna

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  The Enterprise has been dispatched to help the Yorktown that is transporting an experimental weapon code-named Excalibur.  The Yorktown had been attacked by renegade Andorians.  They managed to take the Excalibur of the ship in a shuttlecraft and it is believed that the shuttlecraft crash landed on the planet Mevinna.  Mevinna is a class M planet that nevertheless contains minerals the obscure both sensors and communications. The planet has no intelligent native life forms. However, the planet has attracted many who hate the modern Federation and want to return to primitive times.  In other words, the planet has many space hippies similar to the ones from “The Way to Eden.”

                Since sensors are useless are landing parties would be too slow the Captain organizes teams into shuttlecrafts to explore the planet.  Spock is assigned command of one with two crewmembers, Bemis and Latrobe.  Believing they see evidence of a crashed shuttlecraft they land and begin to look around.  At this point it seems to the fan we might be getting a repeat of “The Galileo Seven” and Spock is going to have a hard time with his assigned crew again.  Nope these guys are red-shirted right away, when a force field turns on right where they are standing and they are turned to dust.   

This event did not go well for Mr. Spock

 

                Spock now trapped on this planet under a forcefield that he has no control over and with no way to communicate with his ship.  He comes across a pool of clear water.  Having developed a thirst, he drinks and while doing so a young beautiful water nymph appears at his side.  She identifies herself as “Phyllida” and declares that she is Spock’s “one true love.”  Spock has a number of different thoughts about her.  Is she a hallucination caused by some thing wrong with the water?  Is she one of those space hippies he has heard about? 

                Phyllida says things that Spock finds to be nonsense.  She claims to have been a powerful princess who had spell but a upon her and turned her into a nymph.  She says that in order to have the spell life lifted she must receive a kiss from her one true love, who she claims is Spock.  While Spock is trying his best to use his equipment to find a way out of this place, Phyllida keeps trying to lure him into a magic cave. At one point Spock humors her and gives the kiss she desires and then immediately calling her out for not transforming. She then reminds him that they must go to the magic cave.  They go there and then after another kiss she revels to him the truth.  She is Lieutenant Phyllida Gains of USS Yorktown.  The whole performance was just a show because they are being watched by the Andorians, however their listening devices are not present in the cave.  From there the two plan to break the force field that Lt. Gains discovered could be destroyed using M-Rays. 

                Everything is resolved the Excalibur has been delivered.  Spock and Gains have a good-bye moment where they discuss what happened. Gains insists that Spock is still her one true love and as she leaves Spock for a moment sees again as the water nymph.  

Spock with Leila

Additional thoughts: The best twist in any story are ones that you don’t see coming but after when you go back over them the clues appear obvious and you feel like fool for not noticing.  Lt. Gains gives many clues to her true identity.  She asks Spock if he would like to be the commander (his actual rank).  She says that her regular clothes are fiery red dress (a reference to her Starfleet uniform).  She refers to flying insects that are clearly meant to stand for the shuttle craft.

Spock with Zarabeth

                It is clear why Spock was chosen to the main character in this adventure as any other character, especially Captain Kirk would have jumped at the opportunity to kiss Phyllida in the mystery cave.  Also, as Nicholas says at the start of her introduction that many women over the years would like to find some magical way, they might be able to breach Mr. Spock’s cold exterior.  Gains leaves an impression so where would we rank her among all the women that could be Spock’s true love. Gains has potential but I don’t recall ever seeing her beyond this story. I know that most people see Zarabeth from “All of Yesterdays” and many like Leila Kalomi from “This Side of Paradise.”  Personally, I think his best lady love was Droxine from the “The Cloud Minders,” they may have had a one-night stand but the two seemed to understand each other really well.

I thought this was Spock's best match!

                There were some other minor details that I wondered about calling the weapon “Excalibur” isn’t that already the name of one of their starships, the NCC-1664?  I also thought it was strange that the bad guys in this story were the Andorians.  Last I checked the Andorians were Federation members, not only that I believe they were one of founding Federation members.  So why are they the bad guys here?  Granted the story did mention they were rouge agents, but still I think it would have worked a lot better if the author had used the Orions.  I wonder if the author was confused because an Orion pirate had stolen the identity and replaced an Andorian diplomate in “Journey to Babel”?  After all there was no internet in the 1970s so no way of going online to check.

To be clear this isn't a real Andorian.

Should it be canon: Yes, like the other two stories in this volume “The Enchanted Pool” would fit well with established Star Trek lore as a single episode where everything reverts to status quo at the end.  Its inclusion would enhance canon.

Cover Art: What I said for the first review in this volume: 

“The cover is beautiful.  You have the Enterprise flying in all its glory in the bottom center of the image.  Behind it looks like a space station built on an asteroid.  Flying above in the opposite direction is an unknown starship whose design I don’t recognize.”

  

Final Grade: Final Grade 4 of 5