HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAPTAIN KIRK

Name: Star Trek: The New Voyages 2 – Story 1 “Surprise!”

Author: Nichelle Nichols, Sondra Marshak, and Myrna Culbreath

Publication Date: 1/1978

Publisher: Bantam Books

Page Number: 31

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          Nurse Christine Chapel          Ensign Pavel Chekov      Mori       Mori’s parents       Mori’s grandfather

Starships and/or Starbases: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets: Arcos

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The adventure begins as the landing party returns from a successful diplomatic mission from Arcos.  The key to their success was the team saving the life of the young grandson of the primary member of the ruling triumvirate.  The child, named Mori, was particularly charmed by Lt. Uhura.

All of the transporter pad we are taking a picture

                It is also apparently Captain Kirk’s birthday tomorrow and the crew is arranging a surprise party for him.  What plays out for the rest of the story is a comedy of errors, as two primary things get in the way of the goal of giving the Captain a nice birthday.  The first is Captain Kirk is not being particularly responsive to being directed by his crew to go places for certain reasons. Kirk has no clue to what is actually going on and spends most of the story getting annoyed at his crew for showing up late to duty and openly annoying him.   The second issue is there is an alien entity on board.  That entity is messing with the starship’s equipment.  At one point the food remixer starts shooting out cake and making a mess of things. A new problem emerges in the form of a communication from Arcos that indicates that Mori is missing his friend.  

                Everything quickly resolves itself. It turns out this entity that can assume a hairy physical form is the friend that Moir is missing. Once he is brought back the Enterprise’s equipment returns to normal. Captain Kirk gets his birthday party and he gets his present from Spock as soon as he beats the Vulcan at chess. Kirk’s present is a grand master’s certificate given how many games of chess he has prevailed at.

Additional thoughts: As much as I love Star Trek, some of its great supporting characters are criminally underused. Considering that this story was written by Nichelle Nichols you would think that Lt. Uhura would be given a little more attention.  Nope, this is a story about Kirk and Spock like almost every other Star Trek story. The only thing that Lt. Uhura gets is a statement about how great she is with children, and Captain Kirk confiding to Spock that he wishes he could give Lt. Uhura her birthday spanking.  Really, Nichelle!

"So, you're saying the Captain wants to spank me? It's almost like I wrote this story!" 

                The story was fun but everyone’s characterization seemed to be a little off. For example, Spock at one point picking Kirk up over his shoulder and carrying him away from the mess hall where they are making his cake and setting up the party, with Kirk protesting the whole time.  The story seemed to try to be “The Practical Joker” but didn’t have the same level of success.

This man is not having a fun time in either story.

                Also, something that I found really weird is in this story Kirk and Spock seem to share a bathroom that connects both their quarters.  This is strange for several reasons one of which I was sure that Kirk and Spock’s quarters were on opposite sides of the corridor.  In the story they use this set up to play chess with each other one play at a time when one just so happens to walk by their quarters.  In a small subplot Spock has Uhura make his move for him and Kirk catches is her as he just came out of the shower and accidently drops his towel.   

Should it be canon: No, because the characters act way too weird, so unless the strange creature that snuck aboard is revealed to be responsible it should remain a fun “what if story.” 

Cover Art: The cover has the Enterprise flying in front of what appears to be a wrecked space station.  Both appear to be in orbit around a planet that you can see part of in the corner.  There is this red haze that surrounds everything.

Final Grade: Final Grade 2 of 5