10 Essential Star Trek Books For Pre-Internet Trekkies
5. Encyclopedia (Second Edition)
The first edition of the encyclopaedia was good but the second raised the bar not only for this volume but also for Star Trek reference material overall.
Transitioning from paperback to hardback, the update also brought in the wonders of colour! Nothing like this had been attempted before but in the hands of Michael and Denise Okuda, fans knew that this would touch every single element of the franchise and more so.
Offering up everything from A-Z, the trusty encyclopaedia condensed the life stories of every Trek character in the days before the internet and Memory Alpha. Want to know what starships were in what episode? This was the place to go. Detailed with an array of pictures, the second edition expanded up to and including season four of DS9 and season two of Voyager.
This in turn offers an interesting moment in Star Trek history when the Dominion War was still a couple of years away, Seven of Nine had yet to step onto Voyager. The scars from First Contact were only just healing when this book went into production and it marks the point where background Trek information really became widely available.