BOOK REVIEW: Spock Must Die! by James Blish

Spock Must Die! by James Blish
Series: Star Trek
Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

Spock Must Die by James Blish is the first book in the Star Trek Adventure series originally published by Bantam. The world of Star Trek is humongous. There are different series in which this enormous world is divided. For a week I was confused to start reading which series or any particular book. My previous knowledge of Star Trek world is limited to the two movies which have came lately and are directed by J. J. Abrams. I know what an enterprise is, I knew the main characters and of course the Klingon race. I haven’t watched the original telly shows but I was confident enough to start an expedition.

The first original Star Trek novel was published by James Blish in 1970, Spock Must Die. My experience with science fiction is limited and I have read some Star Wars books before. One thing I did not like about Star Wars is that the story is limited only to the adventure which star wars try to possess, the story of the twins, the father-son relationship. What I mean to say is that there is little science in that fiction. I think it should be considered more of a fantasy series and less of science fiction. One excellent reason to read Star Trek is that a reader will find similarities to metaphysical quandaries and concepts of physics and philosophy at the same time.

The book begins with McCoy and Scotty having a discussion over the effects of teleporters on human physiology, the mind and the soul. McCoy argues that the person is physically killed and a copied is made at the selected destination. Scotty on the other hand thinks the teleporter is simply a machine that transfers matter from one place to another. A person’s body is converted into a form of matter than can be teleporter and it is then reconstituted at the destination.  While Captain Kirk is witnessing this conversation McCoy talks about solipsistic universe and how a person inherits two universes out of which one is the universe inside his skull and the other universe is the phenomenal. Meanwhile Scotty, decides to run some experiments with the transporter. He tries to make a copy of tachyons (hypothetical particles that travel faster than light) of one’s body, in theory, ti allows a person to stay on the Enterprise while some of their particles go elsewhere and somehow exist there. Naturally, they plan to send Spock. There’s no way this can work. Instead, Scotty makes a non-tachyon copy of Spock, completely indistinguishable from the original. Thus, they end up having two non-identical Spocks.

Blish has written the story with of touch of physics as well as philosophy. In between, he talks about Korzybski and through Spock includes a lot of radical talks. The book is must a read if you are entering the world of Star Trek and Blish’s writing never once let a person feel that it is a fan fiction and although it is not. Everything is absorbable by at the inexperienced Star Trek reader. The characters, the plots are as it is if you are highly familiar with the Enterprise. The only fault I found with Blish’s writing manner is that it is quite slow. Even though the whole book doesn’t take more than a hundred and twenty pages, it took me two days to read it.

3 out of 5!