In Star Trek Log Eight, Alan Dean Foster adapts the episode “The Eye of the Beholder,” plunging Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy into a perilous mission on the mysterious planet Lactra VII. When a landing party vanishes without a trace, the Enterprise crew must confront a race of hyper-intelligent beings who view humans as primitive curiosities—worthy of study, but not necessarily of mercy.
As the crew struggles to communicate and survive in an alien zoo, they face questions of sentience, ethics, and the limits of diplomacy. Foster expands the original script with rich detail and introspection, transforming a 22-minute episode into a compelling sci-fi novella.