Star Trek 365....

[Warped9]

I know this has been mentioned around here before, but the thread seems to have drifted away.

Anyway I just received this from Amazon today and I'll be going through it. Picture wise I haven't seen too much that I haven't seen elsewhere before so I'm interested to see what the text may hold.

Anyone else familiar with this book?

 

[Therin of Andor]

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=126385

Six pages of discussion here.

 

[Nero's Shadow]

I know this has been mentioned around here before, but the thread seems to have drifted away.

Anyway I just received this from Amazon today and I'll be going through it. Picture wise I haven't seen too much that I haven't seen elsewhere before so I'm interested to see what the text may hold.

Anyone else familiar with this book?

Hi warped9 this book is worth the cash good buy for any fan into TOS.? You will like this book many pictures you have seen before but also pictures you have not.

It explain each episode very well and there's plenty of facts to read about some you will know if your a avid TOS fan some that will surprise you.

If I was you I'd buy it today your love it !!!

 

[Commodore_Rook]

I got mine two days ago. I cool book and is very heavy! But it is a quick read, as there is only about a paragraph or two per page with one big picture (production shot, which is pretty neat). All in all, pretty cool "inside info" book on all the episodes.

 

[Warped9]

Candidly the text so far is quite skimpy and sometimes is reprinting material already found in The Making Of Star Trek. Some of the pictures are nice, but very few I haven't seen before.

Candidly I find the format of the book gimmicky and clumsy. It makes it look substantial when there is really little to it. If the pages had been a normal 8x10 size then you could have gotten the pics and the text on the same page with little blank space on pages, and the book wouldn't have been so thick and would have seemed more substantial.

As is so far it impresses me as trying to make a little look like a lot. I was hoping for my rare an unusual images and text that offered me nuggets that I hadn't been privy to before. I'll continue my way through and see how it unfolds.

 

[Botany Bay]

Fair point on the paucity of text, but isn't '365' a series of books on various topics, all presented in that style? ie : lots of images rather than info. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Also, to people like us, no amount of info could ever be enough!

Have to disagree about the photos though. I've been reading Trek non fiction books for decades now, and was amazed how many pics I'd never seen before.

Really enjoyed the sections on 70's fandom and the many pics of young female fans in their costume parade outfits. I think I would have enjoyed being a fan in those days!

I've had the book for a few months, I'm trying to make it last by only reading the pages about each episode after I watch that particular show.

Hope the book is a huge success, and we see more like it. It's a must have for TOS lovers.

 

[Captain Robert April]

For those of us who regularly drop in on sites like startrekhistory.com, no, there's not a lot of new stuff, but there are a lot more folks who don't go to such sites, so most of the stuff in the book will be quite new. I think I saw a new tidbit or two in the forwards, or at least things I'd forgotten about, so overall, it seems worth the price, although I wouldn't mind a few bucks lopped off.

 

[Alienesse]

Captain Robert April is right. For new TOS fans like myself, the book is quite satisfying. Maybe some of the pictures could have been better in quality, but overall I find it was a good investment. It certainly looks very impressive and the content is something that I personally savor. I think of it as a big box of chocolates. And it makes a great coffee table book.

 

[Valin]

I'm hardly a new fan, but there were some facts mentioned that I hadn't heard/seen before.

 

[Captain Robert April]

You'd have to be edging into "expert" territory to not find anything new in this book.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'm hardly a new fan, but there were some facts mentioned that I hadn't heard/seen before.

Ditto. I wasn't really expecting to see much new stuff, but there was heaps, and I've won plenty of ST trivia competitions over the decades. The "365" format promotes its use as a coffee table book. Unlike stuff like "The Making of Star Trek", "Star Trek Lives!" or "World of Star Trek", all of which I read cover-to-cover not long after finding ST fandom in early 1980, this one is definitely for riffling at random.

isn't '365' a series of books on various topics, all presented in that style? ie : lots of images rather than info.

Most definitely. And, on the strength of the TOS title, I went back to Galaxy Bookshop a few weeks later and picked up the "Star Wars" version. It was shrinkwrapped (and has a CD inside) and I'm not even much of a SW fan, but I figured it would be an interesting book because it was in the same style of the other "365" books.

 

[Warped9]

I'm up to "The Naked Time" and my initial impressions haven't changed as of yet. A plot synopsis of the episode and then some background tidbits of which I haven't hit anything I didn't know yet.

And I still think the format is rather silly.

 

[Therin of Andor]

And I still think the format is rather silly.

The publishers have described the format as "Best-selling", so in the world of coffee-table books and gift books, this is obviously working for them, if not you.

How much brand new information were you expecting after four decades of merchandising? How many untold anecdotes are left?

 

[Kelso]

I thumbed through it at the store... looked like quite a nice coffee table book to me. It's the sort of thing you leave out for visitors to your home to look at while you're getting the sandwiches out of the fridge or pouring drinks. I really don't think it was meant to teach life-long Trekkies everything they never knew about Star Trek.

 

[Warped9]

^^ That's pretty much my impression as well.

 

[Therin of Andor]

^^ That's pretty much my impression as well.

And that was pretty much Paulablock's brief.

 

[Warped9]

In all candor I was hoping for something a little more although following Trek closely for so many years now it would be surprising to learn something truly new. I was also hoping to see some rare photos I'd never seen before and I haven't come across much of that either after all these years, although I suspect that there are such photos out there. The advent of the internet has really made a lot of this archival stuff available much more easily than waiting for it to be published in print. And one thing that struck me about the book and interested me was that it was affordable and not exorbitantly priced like some other publications and collectibles have been.

However...there is at least one thing I'm still very interested in seeing and that's original construction drawings/blueprints for the TOS 11 footer Enterprise

 

[Captain Robert April]

^ You and me both.

 

[Warped9]

I'm now about a third of the way through this. The book reminds me somewhat of the Star Trek Compendium by Allan Asherman. The Compendium gave us much of the same information yet with more interesting tidbits (for the time) and I think was packaged better overall. It also covered TAS and the films. The 365 book has better pictures.

Paula Block also makes mistakes. She's still repeating (twice) the mantra that NBC wanted GR to take Number One out after seeing "The Cage" because they didn't like the strong female second-in-command. This is debunked b.s. as we have long known that NBC had no qualms with the Number One character, but did object to GR casting his extramarital mistress in the role.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Supposedly, Majel didn't do well with the test audience, so, like all good misrepresentations, there is a kernel of truth. But, again, this goes back to how Majel came across, not the character of Number One.