Like most fans, there are few Star Trek novels I keep telling myself I should get around to reading. Sarek. Imazadi. But the book I most looked forward to reading and procrastinated the most was The Lost Years. The cover and the blurb on the back make some great promises. It seduces you with that compelling gap between the last episode of The Original Series (TOS) and Star Trek: The Motion Picture (TMP). How did Kirk end up in the admiralty, even after he swore he’d never be taken out of the...

Laying in bed one evening it hit me. When you really compare it to its sisters and spin-offs, Star Trek: The Original Series was really, really weird. Beings and Barriers in Star Trek While you have the classic and repeated clashes with the Klingons, the tense and cerebral cat-and-mouse game with the Romulans, battles with ancient machinery, and plagues of parasitic aliens, no other crew has encountered more non-corporeal life than the original series. Many of these encounters stuck in my...