Rating: 
Summary: The Best Trek Reference!
Review: This is my favorite reference book, and I don't want to miss the opportunity to praise it in any respect. At the first glance, there is nothing very spectacular about the black and blue on white page layout with simple line drawings. The fantastic thing about the manual is when it becomes a real companion to the series, that it picks up all conceivable questions and problems - some real-world annotations are in the footnotes. The other way round, the writers for the series seem to have looked up some things here, so the last three seasons of TNG evidently profited from the book.Rick Sternbach's sense for technical correctness (although he's an artist, not an engineer) and Mike Okuda's view for the details make the STTNG Technical Manual as complete and as detailed as it could be. What I like even more is that it makes sense technically and that technobabble can only be found where common sense or real engineering don't apply. It has been criticised that the book doesn't really explain how warp drive, transporter or phasers work. To be honest, even Sternbach and Okuda don't know that! But seriously, in my view, exactly this is the most important benefit of the book, for what could be the point in explaining the fictional technology on a level where it is impossible to understand (because no complete theory exists) and at the same time easy to disprove (because with some knowledge of real physics one could easily notice that it just wouldn't work)? In other words, the STTNG Technical Manual doesn't impair our ability to suspend disbelief. Furthermore, the book is written like a technical manual for 24th century engineers who operate or service the ship, so I wouldn't expect the very basics to be explained in it anyway. Summarizing, the STTNG Technical Manual may look like a collection of simple technical drawings, but it is a well-considered guide to a great ship. The book is largely free of errors, the only blatant one being that Rick Sternbach accidentally scaled down the captain's yacht's dimensions to only half of what they should be - nothing compared to all what they got wrong in the DS9 Technical Manual (below). Anyway, for everyone interested in Star Trek technology, the STTNG Technical Manual is a must-have. If you have only the money for one book, this should be it. Buy it!
Rating: 
Summary: Good but bad
Review: Well, it was okay. The encyclopedia was better, but these people tried, and that is what counts. Back to my vodka.....
Rating:
Summary: Everyting you wanted to know but where afraid to ask
Review: Where else can you find out information on how the various technical systems off the USS Enterprise operates other than in this book. Everything from the medical tricorder and it's operating procedures to the warp drive and basic warp theory. If you want to learn about it then this is the book to buy. An excellent read for anyone who is interested in Star Trek and how it works.
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