Star trek log Book

Every few years or so I have a period of Star Trek obsession. This time it was brought on by watching the excellent web series "Star Trek Continues" after I had seen all six episodes, I wanted to read. So I turned to Alan Dean Foster's surprisingly excellent Log series. It is surprisingly excellent because the stories are taken from the 1970s Animated Series of Star Trek. But Foster is a master of retell ing science fiction from television and film. Amongst other things he has produced novelisations of Alien and Star Wars. His secret is to enhance and embellish the stories, providing insight and detail which is perfectly true to the world he is talking about, and makes his work greater than its source material.
This is particularly true of the Star Trek Logs. Whilst some care went into the scripting and concepts of the television series, there was no getting away from the fact tat they were basically kids' cartoons. Foster raises them above that level and as stories to read, I believe that they are better than those written by James Blish from the scripts of the original series.
The first and last of the three tales in Log one see Kirk and co facing threats from two different and strange cloud like life forms. But it is the central tale is the best of the three, featuring a visit to Harlan Ellison's City on the Edge of Forever, with Spock travelling back through time to meet his own parents and himself as a boy. Fascinating.