Buried Treasure: The Official Starships Collection Issues 146 and 147

We've waited 145 issues since it was first indicated that the Fesarius would be included in the Starships Collection.

Well now it's here and I'm shockingly underwhelmed with what could be the shortest issue review ever.

It's a ball.

Done, dusted move on to issue 147? Probably should, but we have to give it at least some column inches and a fair trial so let's go.

The Fesarius originally appeared in 1966's The Corbomite Maneuver as a ball covered in cut in half ping pong balls and fairly out of focus. The version replicated here is, as with all of The Original Series entries, modelled on the version created for the remastered episodes.

Essentially it is that ball and is covered totally with a lot of smaller yellow dots to represent the domes across its surface. These are clustered into groups as they were onscreen  and are all perfectly painted on. 

The whole thing is purely made of plastic and in just two pieces which interlock along an equatorial line. It's also one of the largest ships replicated in the series and due to the scale one thing that is lauded in the magazine but tragically omitted on the model is the base patterning that lies beneath the yellow domes.

As for stand fitting, it sits straight on to the curved four strut plastic cup and...erm...yeah...that's it. It just sits there.

The Fesarius is one of those ships which is a necessity to the collection; it HAD to be included since it's the first alien starship encountered in the whole of the franchise full stop but is particularly uninspiring when it translates from screen to physical item. On a good note though, the magazine really earns its keep since the model is such a non-starter. 

The Fesarius magazine opens by recounting the tale of The Corbomite Maneuver since there was never any major detail of the giant space ball revealed in the episode. The new renderings plus shots from the remastered edition fill out the narrative but it's when we get to the Designing... section things get a bit better delving into the original build plus what was done to update the Fesarius for the re-release. The side-by-side comparison is polar although the model doesn't quite carry the update off as well as the page.

Six pages of Matt Jefferies' work on Star Trek takes up the remainder of issue 146. Filled with models and sketches and text which covers why consoles were a certain way, how sets were constructed and much more is a fantastic article for anyone interested in the background of The Original Series. Tons to take in and essential to understand how the look of the USS Enterprise was achieved and why.

Issue 147 does step up the quality a little with the arrival of another one of those ships that is essential in the form of the Miradorn Rai- sorry - reading the base of the stand - in the form of Baran's Raider from The Next Generation's two-parter Gambit. 

The raider is one of the franchise's more unique designs, resembling an insect complete with pincers and aggressive posturing, turning up in a few guises over the years and remaining instantly recognisable.  

The original filming model is something I've seen a fair amount of photos of but what is evident comparing the two side by side is that the top surface detail on the "real thing" has a lot more depth to it than Eaglemoss have added here. It's not that the panelling is in the wrong place more that the depth of the detail seems shallow with the grey overcoat almost washing everything out.

That's maybe an extreme but the grey finish does take away from the large amount of panel detail etched on the raider from the tips of its forward "pincer" disruptors all the way to the back. The lining isn't especially heavy but it breaks up the unusual hull shapes even more and adds texture to the small craft. 

It's not one of the lookers of the collection either with some fairly abrupt angles making their debut on the four extremities of Baran's ship. There are a few points where a yellowed hull segment contrasts to the base grey but this is a lot less exciting than I had hoped for. There's no "wow" factor; it's plain, very subtlety detailed on the ventral side with the odd bit of weathering in a corner or along a panel line to add some aging to the craft.

The pincers themselves are very stable and a lot less flexible than I expected given their shape. I was thinking they would all be metal but the only piece of metal on the ship is the middle of the underside and the front "snout", everything else is in plastic.

That underside is nicely detailed with some yellow and red highlights plus there's a very subtle hint of mottling on the base grey just as there is on the top giving that hint of an aging vessel. The panel lines for the most part on the bottom are much more clearly defined but in comparison to the version we saw in Gambit this model is horribly uninspiring and might have worked better if it had been painted up as the Miradorn Raider. Admittedly it has more to it than the preview pics suggested but that's not saying much when you plonk it alongside the spherical wonders of the Fesarius. 

Perhaps it's most interesting feature is the recessed triple engine exhausts to the rear. Not translucent but at least cleanly painted.The CG in the magazine and some of the screenshots go to show how slight the definition on this model is. Potentially that's down to the thin nature of the craft but it trades off against the end result which could have been so much better. 

Issue 147 tackles the standard details of the vessel gleaned from The Next Generation two-parter plus covers the plot of one of the shows most adventurous tales. Remember the Stone of Gol? Talera? Beaming weapons? Well it's all here to refresh you ahead of Ricardo Delgado's coverage of the ship design that was, as we all well know, originally made up for Deep Space Nine before appearing in The Next Generation and ultimately ending up guesting in Voyager. The design is one of the most distinctive from the franchise and I'm surprised they managed to get away with using it three times!

The final section takes us behind the camera to look at the work of producer Peter Lauritson who worked on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager. His work can be seen in achieving fleet battles between the Dominion and the Federation as well as helping craft Species 8472, Star Trek's first CG aliens and directing Gambit, Part I - which is why he turns up in this issue. 

It's a good magazine that probably outshines the model it accompanies because of the quality of the material it contains - shame it also manages to show up the raider model for being lacking in that surface definition.

These two haven't set the starship collection world alight so I'm not even going to bother picking a favourite out of the two here. Quality is certainly variable with both editions saved purely on the strength of their magazines. Next month that should be resolved with the arrival of the Jem'Hadar Battle Cruiser and the Krenim Warship which both look fantastic in the preview images.

Disappointing month or worth the five year wait for the Fesarius?

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Facing It: Christopher L Bennett Returns to Classic Territory

With his latest work in the Star Trek literary universe, Christopher L Bennett has stepped out of prequel territory into the Kirk era.

Acting as something of a sequel to the first season episode The Corbomite Manoeuvre, The Face of the Unknown returns the USS Enterprise to the First Federation and to David Bailey who is still acting as ambassador to the secretive assembly.

Y'see it appears that the now legendary Balok puppet we all love so much is actually based on a supposedly extinct race called the Dassik who have, you'll be quite unsurprised to hear, returned from the dead to exact some form of revenge on the First Federation which was involved in assisting their neutering many moons ago.

The plot is actually ok here with the reasoning behind the downfall of the Dassik making a fair bit of sense as does why they are utilised as puppets for first contact however...

As regular readers will be aware I've skipped duty reviewing Christopher L Bennett's novels for a good four years now ever since I had a bad experience with one of his Enterprise; Birth of the Federation series. I found that long winded, dull and hard to keep focused on for 340 pages. After so long of personal boycott on Bennett's work I thought I would dig into this one because it's been so long and also because it's The Original Series rather than Enterprise. After all, it might just be that I don't like reading prequel series stories rather than the author as the only novels I've tackled of his are Archer and co.

I can now conclude that it's not that. I think I just don't like Bennett's style. That's not to say he isn't a decent writer nor are his books convoluted or terribly characterised in fact I'd go as far to say that his understanding of the NCC-1701 crew is superior to his precision with the NX-01 staff. The big issue I have is that Bennett will use a couple of thousand words when eight will do and then contrary to that will use a few to skip plot moments or technicalities such as escaping cells for instance. 

There are a number of sequences in the book where there's a lot of talking and nothing really happens. In the build up to the conclusion there's a plot twist involving Balok that seems odd it's not noticed by the crew sooner and then doesn't really get an acceptable pay off. Indeed the story wouldn't have suffered with its omission. There's an action sequence involving Sulu that doesn't really go anywhere either and The Face of the Unknown just comes across as somewhat bloated with great sequences that don't work or are filler. 

To some degree there is a lot going on here with the Enterprise under repairs at the hands of Scotty, Spock off doing his thing, Kirk captured, the Dassik, the mutiple races and personnel of the First Federation... the list goes on. It feels like a struggle at times to read with even Bailey sapped of that boyish charm and naivety that made him an interesting character to follow in 1966. 

While family, work and life in general meant that this was picked up and put down rather frequently it might have meant that some of the story lost its impact and power. I would suggest that to really get to the heart of this book you need to be reading it in significant chunks to keep track of the various threads but for me this one just lacked any conviction and left me pretty cold after reading The Long Mirage and even the uneven Headlong Flight. 

With the recent 50th anniversary I applaud Bennett's choice of source material for The Face of the Unknown and he does a decent job of answering some of the questions fans might have had since that classic episode aired however someone at the publisher needs to help him shave down the word count and cut to the chase. I managed to push on through to the end but found that was more a relief to have reached the final page than a success with some level of readership fulfillment. I think the next time there's a Christopher L Bennett novel dropping through the letterbox I'll be calling on Tiff to review.

Have you read The Face of the Unknown? Fitting sequel or mediocre followup to The Corbomite Manoeuver?

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More News to Continue the Voyages...

We thought that These are the Voyages couldn't get any better. It was already (and we self refer here) probably the best Star Trek reference book ever written - but then Leonard Nimoy read it.

We knew that he had contacted author Marc Cushman over the content of the first season companion and recently we were even told from our Super Secret contact at Jacobs Media Press that there was something special coming because we weren't going to get a hardback copy of the first edition (Bah! we thought) but then this news broke and made our day. 

Jacobs Media Press released a new edition of These are the Voyages; The Original Series, Season One. The new edition has 80 additional pages based on an exclusive interview with Leonard Nimoy and material/photos from personal archives of contributors who contacted Marc after the first edition was released. 

Awesome! However not all was well in Trek fandom.

Now there's been a lot of discussion about this improved edition after fans bought the first which wasn't exactly the least expensive book produced only to find that a second was in the works/on shelves. The Facebook page for the book certainly gives the hint at some thoughts - Is it worth it? Why the hell wasn't the first book up to this standard? ...and the like (I've paraphrased there to give an indication so it's not precisely word for word but you get the gist).

It's a shame, if we're honest, that the first edition didn't work out the bugs, errors and teething troubles that have been highlighted and while the second edition does deal with a lot of the problems, we can see both sides here. It was never the author's intention to cause issues or anger from fans but only to produce an ultimate guide to the much-loved show. On the side of the reader we totally understand that forking out for the same book with corrections and updates isn't financially viable or desirable. 

Still, it is a good book and there's no denying it whether you have the first or second editions. We can only hope that the second and third season volumes don't go through the same process and are as perfect guides as possible on first run.

startrek.com

So what's the best way to find out about what's going on under the cover so to speak? Ask the author. Go to the source. Marc has been really communicative about the additions - the new Nimoy interview for instance now sits within the section dealing with the filming of The Cage and includes the origins of those distinctive ears within its pages. Not only does that add to the wealth of information but there are several other notable quotes and information including some more documents and memos from Robert Justman (right). The tragedy is that this information appears to have only been available after the original publication and therefore omission was unavoidable because Marc didn't know it was there in the first place.

Of those 80 extra pages a lot is taken with a ton of new, previously unavailable photos and Marc even pointed us to Balance of Terror and Arena as just two episodes which have benefited from the additional work. In the former the pre-production section is much expanded with the creative process as well as two or three new pictures including a personal favourite of the Commander Hansen on Outpost 4 -  not something I've seen before or how about preparing to film the cube ship in The Corbomite Maneuver? Take your pick as there are a lot more. 

I know this is going to be another mammoth reading project for me but I have some holiday time coming up and this will be top of the list. To fully detail all the changes would take a long time but I can see they have only been meant to enhance the experience not detract and I understand from Marc that it was not meant to be a bigger volume, just more thorough!

Has it been a success though is a big question. Well, how about the fact it's now available on Kindle in the United States, the UK, Australia and Canada. Top that off with the news that this book has also been translated into several different languages and will be available within days in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Mexico, and Brazil. There's surely no wonder Spock himself chose to be interviewed for such a work?!

In the near future we'll have some more news on this fantastic literary series and maybe even a word or two from the man himself, Marc Cushman.

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL

We can now reveal that Season 2 will be available for pre-order through www.thesearethevoyagesbooks.com) on Monday, March 3. The target publication date is March 25 and the book orders will be filled soon after that date.

Here's a sneak peak of the blurb currently available just to tempt you AND a first look at the new cover!

"For Gene Roddenberry and his talented staff and crew, launching Star Trek was a near impossible task. Keeping it on the air was even harder. Leonard Nimoy almost didn't make it back to the Enterprise for the start of Season Two. Lucille Ball gambled big in putting Desilu behind the chancy sci-fi venture, and would become the next to fall, losing her studio. Discover the real reason Gene Coon suddenly quit as series producer at the mid point of Season Two. Learn which stories by renowned science fiction masters never made it to the screen and why, and which episodes almost didn't make it in front of the camera. Read the memos from Roddenberry and his staff, and NBC, concerning all 26 Season Two episodes, and witness the continuing deception by the network over the TV ratings, and how the fans took on a corporate giant to save their favorite series."

These are the Voyages Season One is available now from Amazon priced £18.23 ISBN 978-0989238120

To see our full review click right HERE

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All images courtesy of Jacobs Media Publishing