There are three new entries in Alan Dean Foster's series of Star Trek Logs. Log Six adapts three animated episodes ("Albatross," "The Practical Joker," and "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth.") Star Trek Log Seven, pictured here, takes the series in a new direction. Foster takes one animated episode, "The Counter-Clock Incident," and uses it as the basis for a full novel that, among other things, helps that episode make a lot more sense. Log Eight likewise uses "The Eye of the Beholder" as the starting point for another full length novel. There are only two more episodes left to adapt, and here's hoping they get full novel treatment, too!

Anyone who read last year's fascinating new nonfiction book, Star Trek Lives, had to be curious about Star Trek fanzines. Speaking as an ordinary 13-year-old in 1976, I can't afford to go to out-of-town conventions or even buy fanzines by mail order, so this book, with some original new stories and some fanzine stories, is a real eye-opener. Some of the stories are straightforward fun or adventure, and others expand Star Trek's horizons. In one story, the cast of the show find themselves suddenly in the Star Trek universe and have to pretend to be the characters they play. In another, Kirk goes through a traumatic experience after being mentally attacked by a Klingon mind sifter and sent back in time.

Well, it's about time! Six years since Spock Must Die, and we finally get another all-new, not-based-on-an-episode, actual Star Trek novel. Old SF pro writer Cogswell and Trek fan Spano have come up with some interesting SF concepts for their novel. In order to blend in better with pre-warp drive civilizations, Starfleet has developed a form of electronic telepathy that allows members of landing parties to know how to behave like the natives. Unfortunately, it seems some of the crew are picking up a bit too much from the native minds they're reading. The book could be better, but since it's the first new original Star Trek novel in years I'm happy anyway. Wouldn't it be great if we actually got new novels on a regular basis?

One of two publications this year by James Razzi, this looks like something that would be a lot of fun for younger fans.

Razzi's other book for this year has something for older fans, too. Maze puzzles, crosswords, trivia, and more games to keep a fan busy for hours. But I wonder why Bantam reused the cover art from James Blish's Star Trek 4.

Remember the fuss last year over the Star Fleet Technical Manual? That was the one book published in 1975 that everyone spent a lot of time reading, rereading, and just paging through. Here's the 1976 reference book of the year. Bjo Trimble's Star Trek Concordance started as a fan publication. Now Ballantine has produced a beautiful trade paperback edition. The first half of the book is a guide to every episode, including the animated series, and the second half is an encyclopedia. The book is well illustrated with line art and images from the animated Star Trek.

The cover has a neat gimmick: there's a wheel connected on the inside of the front cover and some openings cut into the cover. You turn the wheel on the right and, over on the left, you see an episode title, an abbreviation, the stardate, and the page the episode is summarized on.

Keep exploring the world of Stardate 7600!