Who Remembers "The Best of Trek"?

[Dayton3]

"Trek" magazine was a fanzine published by Walter Irwin and G.B. Love.

Eventually, many of the articles published in Trek were published in a series of paperbacks called "The Best of Trek". A total of 18 issues of "The Best of Trek" came out. Primarily in the 1980s.

The books were noted for some of the most "surrealistic" starship and space station designs on their covers as have ever appeared in Star Trek.

In general, the "Best of Trek" books were very interesting as the various writers of the articles tended to give their own opinions about exactly what was and wasn't good Star Trek.

 

[Stevil2001]

Surely the reason for the strange ships on the cover was to avoid anything too overtly Trekky that would get them sued.

I have two of these. One of them contains a bunch of reaction to The Motion Picture. It's interesting to read about how fans reacted to the movie right when it came out, before I was even born. There's one article, if I remember rightly, that explicates all the problems with it that make it what we would call "not canon" today!

One of the books also has the original "Mary Sue" story, which is cool.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I have all eighteen volumes.

I bought The Best of Trek books before I'd ever bought a Star Trek novel.

 

[Haytil]

The books were noted for some of the most "surrealistic" starship and space station designs on their covers as have ever appeared in Star Trek.

Yeah, whenever I see an old one for sale at a garage sale or something, I pick it up just for the cover. Haven't really read inside many of them.

 

[JoeZhang]

what a tease! someone got some of those images?

 

[Scott Pearson]

I do. I've got them all. There's some great stuff in them.

 

[WillsBabe]

I remember the books, but I never bought them myself. My friend was a collector and had them all until someone stole them!

 

[KRAD]

I liked the concept a lot more than the actual execution. I kept waiting for an in-depth, interesting examination that almost never showed up.

At least, that's my memory of my reaction to them. It's been so frapping long, I have no idea how reliable that memory is.

Might be fun to read 'em again, actually....

 

[Mistral]

I liked the concept a lot more than the actual execution. I kept waiting for an in-depth, interesting examination that almost never showed up.

At least, that's my memory of my reaction to them. It's been so frapping long, I have no idea how reliable that memory is.

Might be fun to read 'em again, actually....

Its been a number of years but I think there were a couple of articles of some depth. I only found 3 of the books but in one of them(#3? don't quote me on that) Irwin had written an in-depth analysis of time-travel as it pertained to ST. It was pretty involved stuff and I remember having to re-read it to grasp everything he was covering. Anyway, a cool set of books judging by the few I've read. Shame they're packed or I'd dig out that article for you so I could run over the high points..

 

[Steve Roby]

what a tease! someone got some of those images?

​

There are cover scans (and tables of contents) for all the Best of Trek books on my site, if that helps.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

I remember growing up with them. The first one threw me because of the artwork on the cover but the Trek name made me pick it up and browse. It had a alot of fun info that you couldn't find in those pre-internet days. I remember subscribing to the magazine and that they used to mail it flat and in a manila envelope to keep those "Post Awful" mailing labels off of their slick high-quality covers. It was always a great day after school when I find one of them waiting for me in the mailbox. Some of the highlights were Walter Irwin's movie reviews. Leslie Thompson's Star Trek Mysteries Solved articles. As well as Joyce Tullock's more intellectual insights to Trek and the characters. This was also before VCRs being popular and there was always advertising on the inside back covers for audio cassettes of the episodes. Man, have times changed!!

 

[Dayton3]

I remember several notable articles.

The Best of Trek #2 had a great "history" of the Eugenics Wars.

Another much later one had a fine article that rated each of the original series episodes for their "sequel" potential.

 

[Quimby]

Funny you mention this because I was just doing some cleaning and found one of my copies of Best of Trek. It had some interesting articles incluidng a timeline of the Terran Empire from Mirror Mirror (the point of divergence was the Challenger disaster which ws still fresh when it was written). Some of the writing was a tad amateurish (natch) but you can feel the love for the show in their work.

 

[FalTorPan]

I enjoyed The Best of Trek books far more than I've enjoyed most licensed Trek non-fiction books.

Several years ago I tried to track down Walter Irwin and G. B. Love in order to interview them for my web site. At one point someone contacted me, claiming to live very near one of them -- I forget which. Apparently that person had basically vanished from Trekdom and didn't wish to be contacted. Fair enough.

 

[T'Bonz]

I have all of the mags but the first three(?) (which in newspaper form.) Some wanker sniped me at Ebay when those three came up for auction and I lost the chance to get them. I also have all but the last two books (17 and 18). I got 16 two years ago and was thrilled to find it.

I enjoyed reading Trek and Best of Trek. Still have them too.

 

[Reanok]

Yes I remember these Best of Trek magazines I found a couple of them at a used bookstore recently one of them was issue 3 and other one was issue 6 with articles and reviews of The Wrath of Khan.

 

[captcalhoun]

a mate of mine had #2, i remember the article on the fall of the federation and thinking 'this is bullshit, the Federation could never fall!'

 

[Dayton Ward]

I also remember seeing at least one trade paperback, The Best of the Best of Trek, and wondering just how far they were planning to take this....

 

[JoeZhang]

thanks Steve

 

[Dayton3]

I also remember seeing at least one trade paperback, The Best of the Best of Trek, and wondering just how far they were planning to take this....

They produced two "The Best of the Best of Trek" trade paperbacks.

Although most was reprints of favorite articles from previous Best of Treks, I think that each issue had at least six brand new articles.

I made an attempt to submit an article to "The Best of Trek" . One that compared ST:OS & ST:TNG in the early days of ST:TNG.

The Best of Trek is one book series I would love to see revived.

I wonder who a person would see about that?