| Review : |
A very in-depth review of a ship that never existed but probably should have, designed and "built" during the movie era, that is in many ways a forerunner of the later Defiant (NX-74205). Like the Defiant, the Akyazi (and its near-sisters, the Adamant and the Akula) is a small, very fast starship (Warp 21 on the old scale) with heavy weaponry, designed to fight outsized opponents and win. The book is very well-written, with details of the Akyazi development program from concept to implementation. It's very dry and technical, like a proper reference book, but contains a Trektech geek's dream worth of information on the ship. A caveat, this book was written before the TNG Technical Manual, and some of the information given in it has turned out to be incorrect about how the warp drive works - but unlike a lot of references written around the same time, it does NOT assume that the transwarp USS Excelsior worked. |
| Review : |
This is it... the GRANDDADDY of all Star Trek technical reference books. The SFTM is mostly just a series of pictures with very small amounts of explanatory text, plus the first attempt to create a Federation Constitution (the Articles of Federation, in the very front of the book), but its influence cannot be overstated in any way. Without Franz Joseph's work, it's entirely fair to say, we would not have had Star Trek Phase II, nor the Motion Picture, and without the movies we would certainly never have had DS9, Voyager or Enterprise (some people may suggest that last would be a blessing). This is where the thirty-five (now) year long tradition of critical fan analysis and writing about this fictional universe really got its start. HIGHLY recommended. |
