(Part One) Star Trek - Mission to Horatius by Mack Reynolds, 1968

One of the best places to get vintage Star Trek books: A bearded old man's dusty attic. I got a copy of "Mission to Horatius" from a man in a questionable neighborhood a couple of months ago, and it is definitely an amusing novel, with amusing illustrations.

Fun fact: Mission to Horatius was the first original Star Trek story published as novel.

Not so fun-fact:  Spoilers below. Basically, an outline of the entire story. If you would rather, just scroll down and look at the illustrations.

Kirk's eyes look like they belong to a cat.

When I started reading the book, I could hardly contain my laughter. The story begins with McCoy walking on to the bridge (angry because they are in deep space when they should be on vacation and people are going to go/are going crazy) and then the characters are introduced. Strange quotes from the first Chapter:

"Mr. Spock, with his long face, his pointed ears, his satanic eyes..."

"Dr. McCoy was possibly his closest friend and the only man on board who called the Captain by his first name" (But what about Spock? Spock called him Jim...)

"Spock lifted his satanic eyebrows in question..."

McCoy looks like an angry ape.

It then starts talking about Sulu, and the small brown animal (it is pointed out by Spock that it is a brown rat) that is wiggling around under his tunic. His name is Mickey. He starts talking about collecting an animal from every planet they land on, so when they get to earth he can give them to scientists and they will name a zoo after him.

I don't understand what's going on with Spock's face here.

They find that they have received a distress signal from the Horatian star  system, colonized by humans who wanted to avoid contact with the Federation.

Spock, as usual, knows more about earth history than the rest of the crew, and explains to Horatius (the Greek legend) to them, as well as Baal. Later, amongst the bored off-watch personnel, Uhura states:

"I read once that killing time isn't murder. It's suicide.

She tries to save them from boredom by playing her guitar and singing, but then one of his strings break.

The Enterprise arrives and Neolithia, the first planet in the Horatian Star System. However, Spock finds no evidence of smog or destruction of any kind - it is as if no human lives there. This puzzles them, as there was supposed to be a human colony on the planet. 

Cliffhanger! But not really. This is only part one because if it wasn't then this would be an intensely long post.