Book review
Written by Richard Matheson
Gauntlett Press hardback
Release date Out now

Rare short stories from Richard Matheson's long career...

Following on from their three collections of Richard Matheson's short stories, Gauntlett Press has turned their attention to the author's less easily available output. Some of the stories within have only appeared in privately available editions, so for the true Matheson fan, there is a batch of 10 effectively new short stories to devour.

The two key portions of the volume however are longer in form. Matheson made one major contribution to the first season of the original Star Trek series, writing The Enemy Within, in which a transporter malfunction divides Jim Kirk into two people, one good, one bad. It's a crucial episode, adding three dimensionality to the captain, and cementing him in the audience's mind. Matheson's original teleplay focused solely on this battle between the two Kirks, and subsequent rewrites by other hands introduced a secondary element of danger, as crewmen are stuck on a planet because of the malfunction. Unfortunately this volume doesn't present Matheson's first version, but instead the final incarnation – the former would have been far more welcome.

The second long section comprises the first six chapters of a novel entitled Colony Seven, set in the late 24th Century. It was a project which Matheson abandoned, although a detailed plot survives and is published alongside the chapters. There are some interesting elements, but nothing that makes the story stand out from others of its ilk, and had Matheson completed the tale, it's likely these sections would have been heavily revised. Peter Quentin

VERDICT: 6/10
It's not the mecca for Trek fans that the publishers might have us believe, but this collection makes an interesting read.