19 June 2017

Review: Star Trek Cats by Jenny Parks

Hardcover, 63 pages
Published 2017

Acquired and read June 2017
Star Trek Cats by Jenny Parks

Obviously I expected to like this book because I requested a review copy of it from LibraryThing, but I didn't expect to love it, but love it I did. Parks's illustrations of scenes from the original Star Trek with cats substituting for the actors is beyond charming; almost every page contained a new delight. Who wouldn't love cat Scotty in a Jefferies tube, cat Sulu batting at the sparkles of the transporter beam, cat Spock and cat Kirk watching their ancestor the sabre-tooth tiger in the Guardian of Forever, an Andorian cat, cat Spock and cat Kirk fighting on Vulcan with lirpas (complete with torn uniform shirt for cat Kirk), cat Spock nerve-pinching guards on Eminiar, cat Kirk fighting the Gorn, and so many other delights, including cat Uhura squeeing over a tribble? Parks's cat counterparts for each crewmember is perfect-- if Kirk or Spock or Scotty or McCoy was a cat, this is what they would look like.

One quibble: an early page has a picture of the Enterprise with the opening narration as a caption... but it uses "where no one has gone before," which isn't how it went in the original Star Trek. But surely in the context of this book, it ought to be "where no cat has gone before"!

If you want a taste of what it's like, Parks's website has a panoply of pop culture cats, including many Marvel characters. She has a real talent for matching faces: take her Peter Capaldi cat for example. Spot on!

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