Franz Joseph (1914–1994)

I picked this up in 1976 from the book store on Pioneer Kaserne in the town of Hanau located in what was then known as West Germany. I paid the princely sum of $6.95 and SP4 Swisher, one of my fellow soldiers remarked that "they saw you comin'". Well, Mr. Swisher, these things are selling at anywhere from $20.00 to $800.00 today, depending upon condition. As I managed to get Nichelle Nichols to autograph my copy before she died, I'd say mine is valued a little more than that. You shoulda show more bought one too! In any case, it's a good acquisition for any Trekkie to have in his/her library, and no, mine is not for sale, nor can it be checked out. I will let close friends and some family members look at it and MAYBE handle it.

Inside it you will find, dimensions, engineering drawings, floor plans, schematic diagrams, documentation including Federation treaties, Star Fleet regulations, uniform details, color samples, etc. You want to construct a single stateroom in your Star Trek-themed house? Well, this will give you the floor plan. You could also make a pontoon boat into a shuttle craft using this book. show less

These are so, so delightful. I wish I could frame one (but I already used up my frame-one-Star-Trek-thing card with my partner on framing a star map, so c'est la vie). Truly one of the best things in my collection. Also, I believe, the original source for "cetacean ops," the thing that made me scream loudest in "Star Trek: Lower Decks."

This book sparked off a whole publishing sub-genre.

One of the things that made 'Star Trek' a noticeable tv series was the implied back story and "show bible" that Gene Roddenberry created for the series. Unlike earlier excursions into television sf, Roddenberry wanted to show a convincing organization and shipboard operations, so as to lend verisimilitude to the show and get writers to treat the subject matter with a bit more rigour than they were previously used to. Anyone viewing the show more original series now, especially shows from its first season, will see that he only had limited success - writers and network chiefs took some breaking in to this idea - but nonetheless one feature of the show was that the cast did the same things each time certain situations arose, making them more convincing as characters in a given situation. After all, in Westerns or war stories, everyone knew what was expected of a cowpoke or an army sergeant, even if they'd never been one, because the background was sufficiently well-known so as to be common knowledge - why not for an sf show?

The "Technical manual" was, effectively, the show's "Bible" for writers, slightly enlarged and repackaged for the market. Consequently, both the later iterations of Star Trek, and other shows in the same genre, have gone down the same route. The idea that "it's sci-fi, so you can do whatever you like" hasn't entirely gone away; but we have to thank Roddenberry for trying his best to make that happen. show less

I remember waiting a long time to buy these when they first came out. $5.95 was a lot of money for a teenager then! Much more than a paperback book. These are well done, but I can only look at them so long. Obviously they sold a lot of these--the going price on eBay is pretty low. So I guess these are staying in my collection for a while.