Growing up as a Star Trek fan in 1970s, the tie-in books to meet
the reading interests of Trekkies were few and far between — the
earliest Star Trek conventions were in the early 1970s, and publishers
started to slowly realize there was an audience of eager readers waiting
for new titles about their favorite show. The Star Fleet Technical
Manual was one of the earliest of the Trek non-fiction titles published.
Put out by Franz Joseph Designs, this manual was quite literally that —
it took the form of an instructional manual for Starfleet cadets on
some of the engineering issues associated with the ships and planets of
Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets in the Star Trek
universe. There are highly detailed blueprints of various ship designs,
as well as for several of the pieces of equipment popularized by the
show — tricorders, communicators. The Star Fleet Technical Manual exists
in a weird sort of limbo regarding how “official” it is — throughout
the 1970s and 1980s, fans and production designers considered the
information in it “canon” for the world of Star Trek. However, starting
with the production of Star Trek the Next Generation in 1987, the
contents of this book were no longer considered “official” but rather
“apocryphal”. None-the-less, information from this book made it into
on-screen graphics in several scenes in 1990s-era Star Trek spin-off
series episodes.
This book has gone through several different printings and editions.
Personally, I still prefer the very earliest edition from 1976. This
particular book is probably only for the ultimate in Star Trek
fans…otherwise the information is a bit esoteric or lacks a context that
the average reader can appreciate!
[
The Star Fleet Technical Manual page on Memory Alpha — the Star Trek wiki ] | [
Franz Joseph page on Wikipedia ]
Recommended by
Scott C. Bennett Martin Public Library
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