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Most Trek books revel in trivia that would puzzle Spock himself How can a latecomer to Star Trek ever catch up? Here, in a funny and easy-to-read format, is everything that those unfamiliar with the Star Trek universe need to know to be brought up to warp speed with their significant Trekking other.Coping With Your Trekker discusses the history of Star Trek, important episodes from all the different series, weird aliens and memorable characters, as well as the movies, the technology...plus "Really Cool Things to Say to Impress a Trekker", how to survive a Star Trek convention, and more After each chapter, a quiz helps readers hone their knowledge A handy Trek-to-English dictionary makes sense of it all.For new fans and reluctant mates this book will make the viewing of yet another Star Trek rerun -- arm-in-arm with a pointy-eared loved one -- a happy experience!… (more)
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Just glancing through it again brings back memories of shouting at the TV because something bad was about to happen to those guys in the red uniforms. Even the cover is a delight, as you can move the wheel to get the show title, which then provides the page number and, most importantly, the Star Date. The Star Date! How righteous was that.
Book Season = Summer (school's out)
The first section of the book consists of short, fairly unremarkable episode recaps. It's followed by an encyclopedia-like "lexicon" section, which is... a little odd. In addition to all the things you'd expect -- people, places, weird alien diseases Dr. McCoy had to find cures for -- it includes entries like the one for "basement," which helpfully explains what a basement is and then mentions a couple of times in which characters went into basements, or the one for "quaint" which cites a couple of lines of dialog in which the word "quaint" was used. I'm pretty sure that even in the most rabidly Trekkie period of my youth, I wouldn't have had much use for that information. But... OK. Other entries are considerably more entertaining, such as the one for "beverage," which lists everything anyone ever drank on the show. (Which turns out to be kind of a lot.)
The book also includes fan-art illustrations, some of which are better than others, but the best of which are fairly impressive.
You really do have to admire the fannish labor-of-love dedication behind it all, and, back in the day, it was surely a useful reference to have, if, like me, you're the sort of person who finds ridiculously detailed information about Star Trek useful. These days, of course, if you want episode recaps, or the name of that redshirt who got killed by that cloud creature, it's a trivial matter to find it on the internet. And if you're just looking for something that's fun to browse through, books like The Star Trek Encyclopedia are probably a better bet.
Rating: 3/5, although a couple of decades ago it would probably have been higher.