Well, that sure was a novelization. What's most interesting is how much James Blish wants Yeoman Rand to be a real character. The back copy cites her, too!

I bought all these as they originallly were published, some of the first books I bought with my allowance. I was 9 when the series premiered. Now, in 2020, I'm rereading them along with watching the DVDs of the episodes, so I'm jumping between books to read the stories in the same order. The books were a treasure when you had no other access to the episodes. By the mid 70s though, you could watch Trek in syndication at almost every hour of every day, so I hadn't reread them in decades. It's interesting to finally compare them directly to the original source material They were written up as short stories, with no connections between them, and usually from early draft scripts. so there are obvious differences in character names and action details. Being only 20 to 30 pages, they are also really short on descriptions and give no additional background. Though the first 2 books contain only season 1 stories, other first season episodes weren't novelized until much later, showing up all the way at the end in book 12.

In Book 1, the retelling of "Miri" was a standout, with more description of the background of the colony and some significant differences in how the illness unfolded. 'Balance of Terror', on the other hand, was a disappointment. None of the Romulan scenes are included and the Enterprise destroys the ship rather than the self destruct, dropping all the Federation learned about the Romulans in this encounter. They did get to finish the wedding though more than just Tomlinson die in the end.

Short story (or maybe novelette) versions of several actual Star Trek episodes is pretty enjoyable, but not as much as watching the real things. Sort of wonder how Blish, a pretty noted science fiction writer, ended up doing this (and several follow-on volumes). I guess it paid well. ( )

These adaptations were quite good then, and now. ( )

Blish's short story rewrites of the Original Series Star Trek's scripts are quick, painless reads. They aren't terribly eloquent, since they are based off tv scripts, but they are able to convey some of the more essential Star Trek canon and characterizations in an easy to digest format. ( )