Marvel Comics of the 1980s: August 2016

The Star Trek Book – Strange New Worlds Boldly Explained
By DK Publishing, published June 2016
Written by Paul Ruditis and Sandford Galden-Stone
Edited by Simon Hugo
336 pages (which includes a comprehensive index and glossary)

“Celebrate 50 years of Star Trek with this comprehensive, authoritative guide. Covering all the TV series and movies, including the current movie continuity. The Star Trek Book explores one of the greatest science-fiction sagas of all time.”

I can’t begin to imagine the task it must have been to create this book. Trying to contain 50 years of Star Trek goodness to only 317 pages was a Herculean task. The writers state up front in the introduction that their goal was to provide “an entertaining overview of the franchise”. And to their credit, that’s exactly what they did.

The book is wonderfully dense, and not in a bad way. But rather in terms of the volume of information they managed to jam in between the covers. Neatly divided up into thematic section, The Star Trek Book breaking down its exploration of this universe into digestible parts. It’s quite clear that the authors have done their homework with crisp write-ups with lots of timelines and diagrams.

I really enjoyed that the book stayed in universe throughout, as if I was someone from the 24^th century reading about the Federation’s history of discovery. I was also impressed with the crew bios of all the show’s incarnations, which I thought might be a bit tedious at first, but proved to be a lot of fun.

If you enjoyed Star Trek Beyond and are looking to discover the Star Trek Universe, or if you’re a Star Trek fan who wants a refresher on what’s gone on in the last 50 years of Trek before the new TV show airs, The Star Trek Book should be your go-to reference!