Star Trek: Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion

[Patrick O'Brien]

I was reading the book description on Amazon and thought this book sounded very cool. The author "immersed himself in nearly six hundred books and interviewed more than three hundred authors and editors in order to compile this definitive guide to the history" of the books. And to boot it is "fully illustrated with the covers of every book included", which is just awesome! I have a growing interest in the older novels (thanks to you guys) and I thought this might be a great reference book to own.

The big question is, is this book as good as it sounds? It was published in 2006, do we know if the author is working on a second edition? Are there any glaring omissions? The reviews on Amazon are very positive, what is the BBS take on this compilation? Thanks in advance for any input you guys have.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

Yes it is as good as it sounds! Utterly essential if you're serious about your Trek reading

The only nitpick I can think of is that a couple of my favourite authors declined to be interviewed, like the Reeves-Stevens.

No second edition is planned. I'm amazed this was ever made, considering how niche Trek novels are, and that the TV series Enterprise never got a Companion book (which is essentially what this is for the 600+ novels)

[Patrick O'Brien]

^Awesome, thanks for your opinion/input KingDaniel. I think I may have to pick this one up

[MatthiasRussell]

I don't really like the title. I would prefer Star Trek Literature Companion. Using Fiction seems odd. All of Star Trek is fiction. By using "fiction" instead of "literature", it seems like they are making written Trek more trivial than screen Trek.

[Drago-Kazov]

Too bad a Reader's Companions is not possible because there are so many Trek books.

[shanejayell]

I liked it. I did think Strange New Worlds got a bit too much coverage, but that's a matter of opinion.

[Therin of Andor]

KingDaniel wrote:

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The only nitpick I can think of is that a couple of my favourite authors declined to be interviewed, like the Reeves-Stevens.

My disappointment was that the descriptions of last four "Star Trek Logs" dismissed the contents as being only adaptations of four Filmation animated episodes, but they were so much more than that! Those pages also had lots of white space. There was room to say a bit more about the new material.

No second edition is planned. I'm amazed this was ever made, considering how niche Trek novels are... (which is essentially what this is for the 600+ novels)

Yeah, I seem to remember that even Marco was surprised he was able to get that thing published in hardcopy, especially with online facilities then already capable of daily updates/corrections.

Definitely worth owning!

[JD]

I bought it when it first came out and I love it. It's pretty much essential for anyone who is serious about Trek Lit IMO.

[Patrick O'Brien]

Thanks for the input everyone. I ordered a used library copy today for $2.00, plus shipping. . A new issue was $43.00 dollars on Amazon. I thought paper back would be better than kindle version in order to see the book covers.

[Timewalker]

KingDaniel wrote:

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The only nitpick I can think of is that a couple of my favourite authors declined to be interviewed, like the Reeves-Stevens.

That's enough reason for me to pass on it, then. They wrote one of my absolute favorite novels (Federation).

Therin of Andor wrote:

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My disappointment was that the descriptions of last four "Star Trek Logs" dismissed the contents as being only adaptations of four Filmation animated episodes, but they were so much more than that! Those pages also had lots of white space. There was room to say a bit more about the new material.

WTF??? Alan Dean Foster fleshed those stories out beautifully, and added a hell of a lot of original material.

[tomswift2002]

Patrick O'Brien wrote:

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Thanks for the input everyone. I ordered a used library copy today for $2.00, plus shipping. . A new issue was $43.00 dollars on Amazon. I thought paper back would be better than kindle version in order to see the book covers.

Well one thing that I didn't like about the book was that for the books that were reissued for the 40th anniversary had the anniversary covers instead of the original covers or even both covers (the Bantam Books had their original covers, even though there have been revised covers since the books were first released).

[Therin of Andor]

tomswift2002 wrote:

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Well one thing that I didn't like about the book was that for the books that were reissued for the 40th anniversary had the anniversary covers instead of the original covers or even both covers.

But, as Marco explained at the time, IIRC, both "Voyages of Imagination" and those four reprinted novels were part of the same anniversary celebrations. Marketing Divisions like to use current covers for cross-promotional purposes. Perhaps even contractually, the newly-designed, in-print covers had to be used. You don't promote a reissue with the old cover if it now has a new one.

I've been involved in the business of seeking professional cover permissions. Sometimes the requirements are different for every cover that a publisher puts out.

(the Bantam Books had their original covers, even though there have been revised covers since the books were first released).

Well, what are you going to do, show images of all eight or so variations for each book?

[Steve Mollmann]

Though I admire the effort that Jeff went through to do all those interviews, and I'm thankful that my measley eBook got two full pages of coverage for some reason, I do regret that there wasn't more of an effort to track down archival interviews/sources for books where the authors were unavailable/didn't remember much. (Every Dean Wesley Smith comment seems to boil down to "I wrote that book, huh? Well, I write a lot of books.")

[Patrick O'Brien]

I got the book yesterday and it is awesome. Thanks for the advice everyone I wish they would come out with a volume II.

[Allyn Gibson]

Timewalker wrote:

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That's enough reason for me to pass on it, then. They wrote one of my absolute favorite novels (Federation).

That's where the trade reprint of Memory Prime and Prime Directive (packaged together as Worlds in Collision) comes in handy, because the J-GRS interview there covers pretty much their entire body of Star Trek fiction.