HISTORY
The "project" was started in 1993 with "Star Trek Chronology - The History Of The Future"; it was written by Michael and Denise Okuda, and endorsed by Gene Roddenberry. The main section of the book consisted of a chronologically ordered sequence of entries describing events and stories from all Star Trek TV series episodes and movies produced up to the time of preparation. This main section was divided into seven chapters ranging from Ch1: The Distant Past (from 15 billion years ago, the Big Bang), to Ch7: The Far Future (to the 33rd Century, which was corrected to the 123rd Century in the 2nd edition). There were also ten appendices which contained entries for things such as the main characters, Starfleet, planets and societies, etc. The entries were illustrated with hundreds of black and white pictures. A second edition was published in 1996 which extended the coverage to include productions made in the intervening period, and with the pictures now in colour.
In 1994 the first edition of "The Star Trek Encyclopedia - A Reference Guide to the Future" was published. Again compiled by the Okudas, and similar in visual presentation to the Chronology, but with the big difference that the entries were now in alphabetical order in the style of a traditional encyclopedia, with many new tables, diagrams and collections of images. A second edition was published in 1997, a third in 1999, and the fourth and final edition in 2016.
REVIEW - Factual
The object of this review is the 2016 edition of the Encyclopedia. During the 2015 annual Star Trek convention it was announced that as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a new fourth edition of the encyclopedia was to be produced, the first since 1999. The main reason for the suspension of regular updates was probably the increasing availability of Star Trek related internet resources which many people preferred to use for free rather than spend money on a book.
Unlike all the previous editions which consisted of single volumes, the fourth edition is presented in two volumes enclosed in a substantial slipcase. The boundary between the two volumes is simply determined by alphabetical sorting of the entries, not on the nature of entries; Volume 1 contains entries for A to L, and volume 2 contains entries for M to Z and eight appendices.
The entries are arranged in two columns per page, with the major entries, i.e. those containing over about ten lines of text, being illustrated with small colour pictures, though a small number of pictures are in black and white. The paper is of a high quality glossy type which allows good reproduction of the pictures. The vast majority of the entries are for things that exist only in the Star Trek universe, but as the history of that universe includes the our own real-world history there are many entries for things from our world which were referenced in episodes/movies, e.g. Abraham Lincoln, baseball, prune juice. (Clicking on the following pictures should display them full size, which should make the text readable)
The majority of the entries fall into one of two categories, characters from the Star Trek universe, and the individual television series episodes and movies.
The character entries cover just about every named character (and some unnamed) that ever featured in an episode/movie, even if they were only ever referred to verbally and never seen onscreen. Everyone who had any kind of significant part, even if it was only in a single episode, has a picture included. As you would expect, the lengths of these entries, and the number of pictures included, varies a great deal depending on how prominent the character was in the shows/movies. These entries are primarily concerned with the character's history and experiences in the shows, but they also identify the actor(s) that played them and sometimes some additional real-world information related to the character's development during production.
There are over seven hundred episode entries, but this is still a small proportion of the total number of entries. Each one contains identification information (title, series, episode number), production credits (writer(s), director), first aired dates, etc. The description of the plotline(s) is usually only a few sentences long as more detailed descriptions of the events of the episode are provided in other entries, e.g. for the characters involved, significant events, starships involved, planets/races referenced, etc. These entries are identified in a list of references at the end of the entry for the episode.
An unavoidable problem with works of this type when the subject matter is continually being added to, is that there has to be a cut-off point for the material included. Annoyingly in this instance, the cut-off point would have been much cleaner if the publication had taken place a year later. As it is, the first two Kelvin timeline movies are included, but Star Trek Beyond is not. Presumably, at the time, it was not known how many more such movies were going to be made, or maybe making the publication coincide with the 50th anniversary was considered more important. The inclusion of "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" does complicate the presentation of entries. What they did was to have two separate entries for each character who appears in both timelines. Whenever a character, or thing, from the Kelvin timeline is referenced in the text, the name is postfixed with an elevated dot to differentiate it from a reference to the original character/thing.
At the time of publication there were two main criticisms expressed by fans, 1) the omission of the animated series, 2) the cost. The first is addressed in the first volume's Introduction: "... In a related vein, this work honors Gene Roddenberry's request that the 1973 animated Star Trek series be omitted from the 'official' Star Trek universe, even though we count ourselves among that show's fans. Of course, the final decision of the 'authenticity' of the animated episodes remains the choice of each individual reader." The official price, as printed on the underside of the slipcase, was "USA $150.00/$186.99 CAN". Here in the UK, Amazon initially sold it for £100. I bided my time and kept an eye on the price, in May 2017 it dropped to £68.67, so I jumped in as I didn't think it would ever go lower, and I think I was right. Currently, Amazon lists four pre-owned examples ranging in price from £241.99 to £879.30, with a still shrink-wrapped like-new one going for £302.80. Pre-owned copies of earlier editions are usually available for peanuts.
REVIEW - Opinionated
It's probably related to my age, but I've always preferred reading a hard-copy book rather than onscreen material with all its required clicking/typing/scrolling etc. On many occasions I've used it to look something up, and then spent an hour or so just browsing through it, without the headache I would have got reading a screen for that amount of time.
I think I would have preferred the cut-off point to have been before the Kelvin movies as that would have made it complete for the productions covered, and removed the need for differentiating between the same characters from the different timelines, making it all a lot neater. I don't have a problem with the omission of the animated series.
I found a lot of the pictures to be smaller than I would have liked, but appreciate that due to the number of them, increasing them in size would probably have required many additional pages. But I still would have liked each of the major characters to have had a full page picture, instead of those used which occupy about a third of a column.
The only error I can remember noticing is that in the Cast Index entry for Stephanie Beacham, as well as the character Countess Regina Bartholomew (Moriarty's holographic companion in TNG) it also lists Dr Kristin Westphalen, who is the character she played in seaQuest DSV. There is no encyclopedia entry for any character with a similar name so it's a bit of a mystery how the error was introduced. I've got to admit that I did experience a sense of satisfaction that I'd been able to spot it.
So, I'm very happy that I invested in it, even though it felt like a lot of money at the time, especially as I don't think there's any chance that it will be superseded at any point in the future; the size/cost of an edition covering all the subsequent series probably makes such an endeavour not commercially viable. So it will probably remain in pride of place in my library of Star Trek books (currently between one and two dozen) until the day I pop my clogs, and even ten years on I expect to be consulting it on a regular basis for many years to come.
The "project" was started in 1993 with "Star Trek Chronology - The History Of The Future"; it was written by Michael and Denise Okuda, and endorsed by Gene Roddenberry. The main section of the book consisted of a chronologically ordered sequence of entries describing events and stories from all Star Trek TV series episodes and movies produced up to the time of preparation. This main section was divided into seven chapters ranging from Ch1: The Distant Past (from 15 billion years ago, the Big Bang), to Ch7: The Far Future (to the 33rd Century, which was corrected to the 123rd Century in the 2nd edition). There were also ten appendices which contained entries for things such as the main characters, Starfleet, planets and societies, etc. The entries were illustrated with hundreds of black and white pictures. A second edition was published in 1996 which extended the coverage to include productions made in the intervening period, and with the pictures now in colour.
In 1994 the first edition of "The Star Trek Encyclopedia - A Reference Guide to the Future" was published. Again compiled by the Okudas, and similar in visual presentation to the Chronology, but with the big difference that the entries were now in alphabetical order in the style of a traditional encyclopedia, with many new tables, diagrams and collections of images. A second edition was published in 1997, a third in 1999, and the fourth and final edition in 2016.
| Title | Year | Pages | TV Coverage | Movie Coverage |
| Star Trek Chronology | 1993 | 192 | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-5 | Star Trek I - VI |
| Star Trek Encyclopedia | 1994 | 396 | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-6 DS9: s1 | Star Trek I - VI |
| Star Trek Chronology | 1996 | 342 | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-7 DS9: s1-4 VOY: s1-2 | Star Trek I - VI Star Trek Generations Star Trek First Contact |
| Star Trek Encyclopedia | 1997 | 631 | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-7 DS9: s1-5 VOY: s1-3 (partial) | Star Trek I - VI Star Trek Generations Star Trek First Contact |
| Star Trek Encyclopedia | 1999 | 745 | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-7 DS9: s1-7 VOY: s1-5 | Star Trek I - VI Star Trek Generations Star Trek First Contact Star Trek Insurrection |
| Star Trek Encyclopedia | 2016 | 1,056 in 2 volumes | TOS: s1-3 TNG: s1-7 DS9: s1-7 VOY: s1-7 ENT: s1-4 | Star Trek I - VI Star Trek Generations Star Trek First Contact Star Trek Insurrection Star Trek Nemesis Star Trek Star Trek Into Darkness |
REVIEW - Factual
The object of this review is the 2016 edition of the Encyclopedia. During the 2015 annual Star Trek convention it was announced that as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, a new fourth edition of the encyclopedia was to be produced, the first since 1999. The main reason for the suspension of regular updates was probably the increasing availability of Star Trek related internet resources which many people preferred to use for free rather than spend money on a book.
Unlike all the previous editions which consisted of single volumes, the fourth edition is presented in two volumes enclosed in a substantial slipcase. The boundary between the two volumes is simply determined by alphabetical sorting of the entries, not on the nature of entries; Volume 1 contains entries for A to L, and volume 2 contains entries for M to Z and eight appendices.
The entries are arranged in two columns per page, with the major entries, i.e. those containing over about ten lines of text, being illustrated with small colour pictures, though a small number of pictures are in black and white. The paper is of a high quality glossy type which allows good reproduction of the pictures. The vast majority of the entries are for things that exist only in the Star Trek universe, but as the history of that universe includes the our own real-world history there are many entries for things from our world which were referenced in episodes/movies, e.g. Abraham Lincoln, baseball, prune juice. (Clicking on the following pictures should display them full size, which should make the text readable)
The majority of the entries fall into one of two categories, characters from the Star Trek universe, and the individual television series episodes and movies.
The character entries cover just about every named character (and some unnamed) that ever featured in an episode/movie, even if they were only ever referred to verbally and never seen onscreen. Everyone who had any kind of significant part, even if it was only in a single episode, has a picture included. As you would expect, the lengths of these entries, and the number of pictures included, varies a great deal depending on how prominent the character was in the shows/movies. These entries are primarily concerned with the character's history and experiences in the shows, but they also identify the actor(s) that played them and sometimes some additional real-world information related to the character's development during production.
There are over seven hundred episode entries, but this is still a small proportion of the total number of entries. Each one contains identification information (title, series, episode number), production credits (writer(s), director), first aired dates, etc. The description of the plotline(s) is usually only a few sentences long as more detailed descriptions of the events of the episode are provided in other entries, e.g. for the characters involved, significant events, starships involved, planets/races referenced, etc. These entries are identified in a list of references at the end of the entry for the episode.
An unavoidable problem with works of this type when the subject matter is continually being added to, is that there has to be a cut-off point for the material included. Annoyingly in this instance, the cut-off point would have been much cleaner if the publication had taken place a year later. As it is, the first two Kelvin timeline movies are included, but Star Trek Beyond is not. Presumably, at the time, it was not known how many more such movies were going to be made, or maybe making the publication coincide with the 50th anniversary was considered more important. The inclusion of "Star Trek" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" does complicate the presentation of entries. What they did was to have two separate entries for each character who appears in both timelines. Whenever a character, or thing, from the Kelvin timeline is referenced in the text, the name is postfixed with an elevated dot to differentiate it from a reference to the original character/thing.
At the time of publication there were two main criticisms expressed by fans, 1) the omission of the animated series, 2) the cost. The first is addressed in the first volume's Introduction: "... In a related vein, this work honors Gene Roddenberry's request that the 1973 animated Star Trek series be omitted from the 'official' Star Trek universe, even though we count ourselves among that show's fans. Of course, the final decision of the 'authenticity' of the animated episodes remains the choice of each individual reader." The official price, as printed on the underside of the slipcase, was "USA $150.00/$186.99 CAN". Here in the UK, Amazon initially sold it for £100. I bided my time and kept an eye on the price, in May 2017 it dropped to £68.67, so I jumped in as I didn't think it would ever go lower, and I think I was right. Currently, Amazon lists four pre-owned examples ranging in price from £241.99 to £879.30, with a still shrink-wrapped like-new one going for £302.80. Pre-owned copies of earlier editions are usually available for peanuts.
REVIEW - Opinionated
It's probably related to my age, but I've always preferred reading a hard-copy book rather than onscreen material with all its required clicking/typing/scrolling etc. On many occasions I've used it to look something up, and then spent an hour or so just browsing through it, without the headache I would have got reading a screen for that amount of time.
I think I would have preferred the cut-off point to have been before the Kelvin movies as that would have made it complete for the productions covered, and removed the need for differentiating between the same characters from the different timelines, making it all a lot neater. I don't have a problem with the omission of the animated series.
I found a lot of the pictures to be smaller than I would have liked, but appreciate that due to the number of them, increasing them in size would probably have required many additional pages. But I still would have liked each of the major characters to have had a full page picture, instead of those used which occupy about a third of a column.
The only error I can remember noticing is that in the Cast Index entry for Stephanie Beacham, as well as the character Countess Regina Bartholomew (Moriarty's holographic companion in TNG) it also lists Dr Kristin Westphalen, who is the character she played in seaQuest DSV. There is no encyclopedia entry for any character with a similar name so it's a bit of a mystery how the error was introduced. I've got to admit that I did experience a sense of satisfaction that I'd been able to spot it.
So, I'm very happy that I invested in it, even though it felt like a lot of money at the time, especially as I don't think there's any chance that it will be superseded at any point in the future; the size/cost of an edition covering all the subsequent series probably makes such an endeavour not commercially viable. So it will probably remain in pride of place in my library of Star Trek books (currently between one and two dozen) until the day I pop my clogs, and even ten years on I expect to be consulting it on a regular basis for many years to come.
