Review by Adrian Smith
'Star Trek' has been with
us now for almost fifty years. It has spawned five different incarnations on
television, ten official movies and soon the sequel to J.J. Abram's successful
reboot of the franchise will be in cinemas, titled Star Trek Into Darkness.
Gene Roddenberry's vision of an international, interstellar crew aboard a
gigantic spacecraft whose mission was simply to explore the universe has
touched millions of people and generated some almost alarming levels of
devotion and influence. One only has to look at the campaign to build a real
Starship Enterprise to see that this show is taken very seriously by many
(www.buildtheenterprise.org).
But not everybody is well
versed in 'Star Trek' lore. Over the decades of boldly going through the galaxies
a massive amount of alien races, mythologies and technology has been devised to
keep the shows and movies interesting. Some of these are well known even
amongst non-Trekkies, with most people knowing the difference, say, between a
Klingon and a Vulcan. What what about the Jem'Hadar? Or the Yridians? Could you
name the home planet of the Xindi? Or explain how the Suliban Cabal became
genetically enhanced? Thankfully these questions and more can now be answered
without needing to trawl back through all those old 'Star Trek' tapes. If you
want to be more familiar with the 'Star Trek' universe in time for the new
movie, or just want to take a warp speed trip down memory lane, this new book
from D.K. guides you through each incarnation of the television series, from
the original 'Star Trek' through to 'The Next Generation', 'Voyager', 'Deep
Space Nine' and 'Enterprise'. Also included is information from the first ten
movies.
Aside from the
introduction by John De Lancie, who played the mysterious extra-dimensional Q
in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', there is no acknowledgement in here that
this is all fictional. The book acts as a glossary providing imagery and
information as though it was all real. This is fun for fans who may want to
check how to distinguish a Type-1 Phaser from a Type-2 Phaser, but a little
frustrating if you are more interested in the history and development of the
production from its inception. However, there are plenty of other books out
there which cover that side of the story. Where Star Trek: The Visual
Dictionary stands out is in its wealth of imagery, plenty of which is quite
rare, having only just been released from the CBS archives. The book is well
laid out and is something you can quite easily dip in and out of. You can
marvel at the intricacies of the designs and the imaginations of the show's
creators even if you can't find out who any of them were.