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An exciting new story of interplanetary adventure.—Spock Must Die! is a Star Treknovel by James Blish, published in January1970. Although several adaptations preceded Spock Must Die!, this work was the first original Star Trek prose publication by Bantam Books, and the second overall following Mission to Horatius, which was a young reader novel. That makes Spock Must Die! the first original Star Trek prose literature not intended for young readers. Blish had previously written three volumes of TOSepisode novelizations before this book, and would contribute to 9 more before his death in 1975.
Following the publication of Spock Must Die!, there was no other licensed original Star Trek prose from Bantam until the release of The New Voyages (short storyanthology) and Spock, Messiah! (full-length novel), both in 1976.
The Organians should be consulted about the war but their entire planet has disappeared—or been destroyed...
Mr. Spock entered the transporter chamber. His image would be flashed to Organia by the huge machine's faster-than-lighttachyons. But the experiment failed. Suddenly there were two Mr. Spocks. One of them had to be destroyed...
Launching an unprovoked attack upon the Federation, the Klingons have broken the terms of the Organian Peace Treaty—leaving the Enterprise stranded deep in uncharted space, cut off from the rest of the Federation fleet.
To find out what happened to the Organians, CommanderScott rigged an experimental modification to our transportation system designed to enable a tachyon replica of Mr. Spock to travel faster-than-light to Organia. But the experiment failed, and incredibly, left us with two identical Spocks: one of whom is a replica in every way opposite of our first officer, a traitor whose continued existence poses a grave threat to the Enterprise and quite possibly the entire Federation.
The USS Enterprise is star mapping a region of deep space near the galaxy's Shapley Center. During a philosophical discussion between Leonard McCoy and Scotty on the nature of the transporters, word is received that war with the Klingons has broken out, Organia has apparently been destroyed, and the Enterprise has been cut off from the Federation. Kirk decides to head through the Klingon Empire's space to Organia to find out why the Organians have not intervened, a journey which will take nearly six months. To save time, Scott proposes to Kirk that they use tachyons to create a temporary copy of Spock, beam him to Organia, and retrieve him with the information they need. However, when the experiment is carried out and the sealed transporter is opened, they find that not only has the copy failed to reach Organia, but a duplicate Spock has been created.
The two Spocks (which Kirk dub Spock One and Spock Two) each claim to be the original and take an immediate dislike to each other. Spock Two insists to Kirk that Spock One be destroyed without explaining why, but with no way of knowing which is the duplicate and which the original, Kirk decides to keep both of them on as first officer on separate shifts. Shortly afterwards, the Enterprise drops out of warp speed for a second on one of the Spock's instructions, risking its detection by the Klingons and forcing Kirk to relieve both of them from duty. Spock Two theorizes that the duplicate is a mirror image, reversed by whatever stopped it from reaching Organia: not just his anatomy, but his mind as well… meaning that one of the Spocks is now loyal to the Klingons. Spock One barricades himself in McCoy's laboratory and refuses to leave unless Spock Two is destroyed.
The Enterprise reaches Organia, where they find it surrounded by an energyshield which produces strong feelings of horror in the crew. Before they can investigate, they are attacked by a Klingon battlecruiser. During the battle, the Enterprise uses the deflector beam and the tractor beam together to plant a mine in the Klingon ship's warp field, destroying it. In a subsequent meeting, both Spocks insist they will only help the crew once the other has been destroyed, but McCoy claims that he has worked out that Spock One is the duplicate—just as he escapes.
The confrontation.
Kirk and McCoy discover that Spock One, being a mirrored duplicate and therefore unable to consume normal food, had been using the technology and chemicals in the lab to manufacture the nutrients he needed to survive. They detect a shuttlecraft leaving the hangar deck and head for Organia at warp speed. Kirk, Spock Two and Scott beam down to Organia, where the two humans suffer from intense and terrifying hallucinations due to the effect of the thought-shield. They encounter Spock One, who is destroyed in a mental battle with Spock Two with some aid from Kirk. They make contact with the Organians, who take them to the stolen shuttlecraft. Scott constructs a device which, powered by the modified engine, disables the thought-shield. The Organians, now free to act, decide to punish the Klingons by depriving them of space flight for a thousand years. The war over, the Enterprise reports to Starbase 16 for two weeks down time and a new assignment.
Stardate 4011.8 : The Enterprise crew consider their options. James T. Kirk takes some comfort in knowing that seventeen starbases are present to fight the Klingon invasion. They head towards Organia. (in-story)
Stardate 4201.6 : The landing party reach the Organians and begin to formulate a plan. The Enterprise withdraws toward Federation space, but is surrounded by Klingon ships. (in-story)
STreference: Star Fleet Technical Manual: Spock Must Die! originated the use of the astronomy term "Shapley Center" for the galactic core that was later included in the SFTM reference work.
German language translation collected in Der große Sammelband IV.
Background[]
Spock Must Die! is the first original Star Trek novel in a series. The only previous publication to this besides the initial books of the Star Trek 1 novelization series was the stand-alone young-adult novel Mission to Horatius.
Continuity[]
A number of lifeforms, diseases and other science information was originated by author James Blish in this volume, with some notable references as homage to other literature. Some were never mentioned in Star Trek again.
The gormenghastly, reepicheep and tnucipen lifeforms all bear similarity to names from the works of other authors contemporary to or followed by Blish.
The text does not specify the name or class of the shuttlecraft, but the German language adaptation of the Terra Astra series Duell der Träume shows the ship, with registry, in the cover art.
The Croatianlanguage translation of the novel, Spok Mora Da Umre, shows some fairly generic spacecraft or spaceprobes over a rockyplanetoid. In the context of the story, this might represent the homing missile, or the Klingonwarships such as the Klingon corvettes or the Star-classbattleship. In actuality, the foreign translation of the story reused a painting by Vincent di Fate that originally appeared on the cover of a 1978 issue of Analog Science Fiction..
The assertion at the end of the book that the Organians intend to deprive the Klingons of spaceflight for 1,000 years is contradicted by nearly all subsequent canon. The only plausible explanations are that the Organians relented, or that this volume takes place in an entirely alternate continuity from the rest of Star Trek. It is possible that Blish intended to expand on this concept in a later work, but he passed away before doing any further original writing for Star Trek.
15th printing by Bantam. Cover by Bob Larkin featuring Captain Kirk confronted by two Spocks. This cover was done in couple different layout styles. (ISBN 0-553-12589-3)
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