The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Revised and Expanded Edition: A Reference Guide to the Future Hardcover – October 18, 2016

I received my copy of the latest (2016) edition of The Star Trek Encyclopedia today. I own the previous three editions and, after looking over this revised and expanded version, I can make a few observations about how it compares to its predecessors.First of all, you are getting a huge amount of additional material as this edition covers the rest of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager as well as the entirety of Star Trek: Enterprise and the three movies since the prior edition (Nemesis, Star Trek (2009), and Star Trek Into Darkness). There are no articles concerning material from Star Trek Beyond (2016), though, which sort of makes the book already out of date. But I don't mind, both because I'm not crazy about the Kelvin Timeline movies and because a book about an ongoing franchise is bound to have trouble keeping up.As to the material about the Kelvin Timeline, I was surprised to find it integrated into the body of the encyclopedia. The early press release about this edition seemed to suggest that the "Abrams Trek" material would be contained in an Appendix section, separate from the other entries. Instead, Kelvin material is found alongside Prime Timeline stuff, but with separate, parallel articles differentiated by a dot after the entry name. For instance, there are separate entries for "Spock" (prime timeline) and "Spock*" (Kelvin Timeline).The encyclopedia is beautifully laid out inside, although the text is smaller than the prior edition. Illustrations are more numerous and sometimes new. For example, every one of the entries about episodes is accompanied by a picture from the episode. Many of the diagrams of starships have been updated to a CGI-looking image which better captures subtle textures and lighting effects than the older illustrations. The "Remastered" version of The Original Series makes its presence felt as images of ships we never saw in the original version of the show (like Harry Mudd's ship) are illustrated with the remastered series' designs.As to the level of detail in the articles, I noticed that articles about more recent Trek productions (such as Enterprise and the reboot movies) were longer and more in-depth (perhaps irritatingly so) than entries about earlier productions, which are mainly holdovers from the earlier editions. Like the previous editions, you will find appendices (at the end of Volume Two) for Federation/Earth Ships, Ships of the Galaxy, timelines of historical events in the Trek universe and of Star Trek production, Writer and Director Credits for all Trek TV episodes and movies except Beyond and The Animated Series (there are also no encyclopedia entries about TAS, which is not considered canon), and a Cast Appendix. Absent from this edition, however, is the appendix of production personnel, which the previous two editions included. This was slightly disappointing. Also, the appendices showing the different Federation/Earth ships and ships of the galaxy no longer show the illustrations at approximate scale. This is a plus or a minus depending on how you look at it.In sum, this is a great reference for fans of Star Trek. It doesn't have entries for *everything* in Trek (I couldn't find the alien race called the "Harada" mentioned in TNG or "Admiral Fitzpatrick" from "The Trouble with Tribbles."), but it has enough!

Describing the book using the selection choices for fiction is difficult to use when it's a fictional reference book.None the less with the existence of the internet and the online "Star Trek Encyclopedia" wiki/a known as "Memory Alpha" which has incredible sources of information, recaps of episodes, and BTS info a book-set like this seems quaint. But it works very, very nicely. To begin with the thing is massive, weighing a combined 13 lbs the two books are 1.125 inches thick a piece inside a box that itself is an eighth of an inch thick all around. The book has that "reference book smell" common to the type of high-quality, treated, paper used in them. Nice, glossy, pages with easily readable text and high-quality images comprised of both screen caps from the episodes/movies, illustrations of the ships, aliens, clothing, technology and such and large reference tables for the planets, species and numerous other things that make up all of the Star Trek universe.An utter trove of information that's just neat to have in a hard, physical, form.The set encompasses all of Star Trek's 50 years of canonical film and television productions through the 2013's Star Trek: Into Darkness. though the book does make some tangential references to 2016's Star Trek: Beyond and the planned series set to be released in the next couple years. The information referencing events in the movies since 2009's "Star Trek" is called out as being part of "The Kelvin Timeline" to distinguish its events and information from the "Prime Timeline" that makes up the bulk of the Star Trek universe for the last 50 years.Massive book, and lots of information. Needed in a world with Wikis and such? Probably not, but there's something about having a physical copy of something that was created by two heroes in the Star Trek fandom, being a huge part of Star Trek since The Next Generation, in Michael and Denise Okuda.In the reviews/ratings on this page mostly mention older versions of the Star Trek Encyclopedia books that came out years ago; hard to relate them at all to this release.

My only complaint is how poorly this was shipped. My set arrived yesterday before nine in the morning (gotta love Prime!). Sadly this is the fist package I have ever received from amazon without sufficient protective packing materials. The box set was simply placed inside the shipping box without bubble-wrap or paper to keep it from shifting during shipping. Naturally one of the corners got damaged / dinged up. Can't decide if it is really worth exchanging it because I am having such a great time simply opening a random page and reading tasty tidbits about one of my favorite tv / film franchises.For anybody contemplating this set I would highly recommend it. I vaguely remember seeing an earlier version of this encyclopedia about 20 years ago and found it to be severely lacking. It was a paperback with only a few hundred pages of lightweight paper with no color shots that I can remember. The pages in this new version are heavy and glossy, full of color shots of characters, ships, sets, and of course the many iterations of uniforms.The listings are sometimes a bit brief, but usually all the information you need is there. Plus you can always use information in one listing to look up another listing. This cross referencing is phenomenal in scope and just oozes professional production. Just browsing for a couple of hours I learned many things I had suspicions of, or was curious about.I just hope amazon improves its shipping method it is quite disappointing to spend this much cash and receive a damaged product.