In the last Nerd Search series book, Star Trek: Quibbles with Tribbles, fans of Star Trek’s original series were challenged about their detailed knowledge of the space adventures of Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhura, and Chekov. A “Where’s Waldo?” type game with puzzles just like in that doctor’s office waiting room staple Highlights magazine–requiring you know truly trivial details of the series, it was a light-hearted book of fun for Trekkers and Trekkies everywhere. In Star Trek: The Next Generation: Bloopers of the Borg, this next colorful hardcover book of the series switches gears to Star Trek: The Next Generation, and like its predecessor it will challenge every fan of the show.
Our borgBest of 2021 list continues today with the Best Books of 2021. If you missed them, check out our reviews of the Kick-Ass Heroines of 2021here, the Best Movies of 2021 here, and the Best in TV 2021here. And we wrap-up the year with our additions to the borg Hall of Fame tomorrow. We reviewed more than 100 books that we recommended to our readers this year, and some even made it onto our favorites shelf. We don’t publish reviews of books that we read and don’t recommend, so this shortlist reflects only this year’s cream of the crop. So let’s get going!
Best Sci-Fi, Best Tie-In Novel – Moments Asunder by Dayton Ward (Gallery Books). An engaging read and fun-filled start to a new trilogy, full of great throwbacks to all the Star Trek series, with several surprise characters and incorporated events, and a great update to Wesley Crusher. Runner-up: Star Trek: Picard–Rogue Elements(Gallery Books), by John Jackson Miller, provided a great story for a newer character, pulling into the mix the future of some familiar characters including the classic villain Kivas Fajo.
In many ways the most diehard Star Trek fan is going to be surprised when they flip open the new behind-the-scenes account of the original 1966-1969 series in the full-color, hardcover, coffee table-style book, Star Trek: A Celebration. Even if you’ve read everything about Star Trek you could get your hands on, you haven’t seen it in one volume presented like this. Star Wars fans have seen this kind of volume in the works of the late JW Rinzler, and although this book is not as dense, it will serve the same purpose for Star Trek aficionados. The wildly popular The Princess Bride–A Celebration was given similar treatment, as was the landmarkStar Trek: Voyager–A Celebration, released only this year, also by publisher Hero Collector. I can’t understate what a welcome book this is for fans of the original Star Trek series. As Star Trek fans across the globe celebrate 55 years of the Star Trek franchise, coinciding with the centennial of the birth of its creator, Gene Roddenberry, it’s well past time fans got a book to–yes–celebrate one of the greatest and most influential television series of all time. Star Trek: A Celebration is available today for the first time here at Amazon and at bookstores everywhere.
Where Star Trek Shipyards is an in-universe library looking at the hundreds of ships of the franchise, Star Trek Designing Starships is a library about the creators and creative process behind those ships. The fifth volume of the encyclopedia of Star Trek ship design has arrived as publisher Hero Collector continues its series after volumes on the starships Enterprise,Voyager, the Kelvin timeline ships, and Discovery. The human adventure continues in Star Trek Designing Starships: Deep Space Nine and Beyond. It’s available now here at Amazon. As with the publisher’s previous books, Star Trek Designing Starships is known for its colorful, high quality illustrations in a coffee table-style hardcover edition, providing a near-exhaustive library to the array of the franchise’s highly-detailed spacecraft.
With a new Star Trek Day event coming next month, Star Trek fans across the globe will be celebrating 55 years of the Star Trek franchise, coinciding with the centennial of the birth of its creator, Gene Roddenberry. The 55th anniversary of the launch of the series is worthy of the celebration, and authors Ben Robinson and Ian Spelling have created the latest definitive, behind the scenes account of the 1966-1969 series in their new full-color, hardcover, coffee table-style book, Star Trek: A Celebration, available for pre-order now here at Amazon.
On September 8, 2021, at 7:30 p.m. Central, get ready for Star Trek Day (not to be confused with First Contact Day–April 5, or Picard Day–June 16, or Alien Day–April 26, or Star Wars Day–May 4). Star Trek Day 2021 will be all virtual– a better deal than, say Star Wars Celebration and D23, since everyone can join in for a virtual event. Look for 13 streamed panels, including several retrospective panels, as well as panels featuring stars of all five in-production Star Trek series: Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds, to feature Anson Mount’s Captain Pike and the early Enterprise crew. Check out streaming platform Paramount Plus for more information, which says fans worldwide will be able to live-stream the Star Trek Day celebration panels for free at StarTrek.com/Day.
The sixth volume of the encyclopedia of Star Trek ships has arrived as publisher Hero Collector continues its library where Star Trek Shipyards: The Borg and Delta Quadrant (reviewed here at borg), left off. Continuing the voyages chronicled over seven seasons of Star Trek Voyager,Star Trek Shipyards: The Delta Quadrant Volume 2 documents, in a coffee-table class, full-color hardcover edition, the ships of the alien races in alphabetical order from Ledosian to Zahl. It’s available now here at Amazon. Star Trek Shipyards is known for its colorful, high quality illustrations, providing an in-universe guide–with the goal of creating an exhaustive library–to the seemingly endless array of the franchise’s highly-detailed spacecraft.
The fifth volume of the encyclopedia of Star Trek ships has arrived. This time Hero Collector is taking on the ships of Star Trek: Voyager. It’s all in the new full color hardcover book Star Trek Shipyards: The Borg and Delta Quadrant,Volume One, available now here at Amazon. Star Trek Shipyards is known for its colorful, high quality illustrations, providing an in-universe guide to the seemingly endless array of the franchise’s spacecraft. Because of the timing of cutting edge computer-generated design during the seven years of Star Trek Voyager, writers Ben Robinson and Marcus Riley were able to compile two volumes worth of images, using the actual renderings used by the show’s art and visual effects departments. But first it takes a look at the ships of The Borg, the cybernetic race first seen in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
For a fan like me, Star Trek: Voyager was the definitive Star Trek series, the crew that most fully embraced Gene Roddenberry’s vision beyond the television series he created in 1966. It featured a crew on a ship that explored like no crew before it, with only their available technology and their wits to survive. Helmed by Kate Mulgrew’s personable yet tough Captain Kathryn Janeway, the crew would travel 70,000 light years home after being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. The 25th anniversary of the launch of the series was 2020, and worthy of the celebration, authors Ben Robinson and Mark Wright have created the definitive behind the scenes account of the 1995-2001 series, Star Trek: Voyager–A Celebration, available now here at Amazon.
