James Blish was a science fiction writer who wrote over 27 novels, most notably the Cities in Flight series, and A Case of Conscience, for which he won a Hugo Award. He also was a highly respected critic, and his criticism in collected in the books The Issue at Hand, and More Issues at Hand, (published under the pen name of William Atheling, Jr.). Using the original scripts, which sometimes differed from the final filmed episode, Blish turned each episode of the original Star Trek into a short story, which were collected into anthologies and published as paperback originals. The Star Trek Reader collects three of these anthologies: Star Trek 1, Star Trek 4, and Star Trek 9.

The episodes present include:

• Charlie’s Law
• Dagger of the Mind
• The Unreal McCoy
• Balance of Terror
• The Naked Time
• Miri
• The Conscience of the King
• All Our Yesterdays
• The Devil in the Dark
• Journey to Babel
• The Menagerie
• The Enterprise Incident
• A Piece of the Action
• Return to Tomorrow
• The Ultimate Computer
• That Which Survives
• Obsession
• The Return of the Archons
• The Immunity Syndrome