10 Essential Star Trek Books For Pre-Internet Trekkies

6. TNG Tech Manual

Star Trek Imzadi
Paramount

Want to know everything ever about the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D? Then this was the book to do it.

Technical manuals were nothing new with both the Star Trek Starfleet Technical Manual (1975) from Franz Joseph and Shane Johnson's Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise (1987) making significant impact with fans. They would be followed by 1991's The Next Generation Technical Manual which would rewrite the standards.

What made this different was that it was written as an in-universe volume by TNG's very own in house tech experts Rick Sternbach and Mike Okuda (pictured). Filled with ridiculously detailed schematics and information on just about everything aboard the ship, it would take background reading to a whole new level, introduce the Nova Class and put the Excelsior Class in print as the Enterprise-B.

Add in that Sternbach and Okuda worked in lots of asides to tell fans about the in jokes and onscreen additions to spot and you have Star Trek's very first foray into Easter Eggs. The Technical Manual, produced during the fourth season of TNG, opened fans eyes to just how intricate the new take on Star Trek was and the love and care that was producing the final frontier.

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A Star Trek fan from birth, I love to dive into every aspect of the franchise in front and behind the screen. There's something here that's kept me interested for the best part of four decades! Now I'm getting back into writing and using Star Trek as my first line of literary attack. If I'm not here on WhatCulture then you're more than welcome to come and take a look at my blog, Some Kind of Star Trek at http://SKoST.co.uk or maybe follow me on Twitter as @TheWarpCore. Sometimes I force myself not to talk about Star Trek.