Star Trek Haynes Manual Discussion?

I noticed that there doesn't seem to be a thread for it here and was wondering what the opinions of those in Trek Lit who may have got it. Those in Trek Tech have been almost overwhelmingly negative so far. I've still not been able to get a copy thanks to Chapters/Indigo not having any shipment in theirs stores and canceled my online order. Any thoughts on it?

 

Don't buy it.

 

^Could you elaborate? I'm hesitant to wade into the Trek Tech thread, which is Part 3 and is 350 posts long.

 

I'm considering buying it but none of the waterstones in my area have it in stock and I'd rather have it physically in my hands and being able to look through it before ordering it online.

 

Agreed on that score. Such inventory issues are certainly problematic for both chain and independent bookstores for assorted reasons, but I'd also prefer having something I can look over in the store first.

 

It seems perfect for fixing up that rusty old constitution class starship I have sitting in my back yard. I wonder if my local dealership will have spares?

 

Reused cutaway graphics (without crediting the artists). Sparse text that appears to be very similar to what is already on the web in some cases. Incorrect new artwork (The Galileo is totally wrong with the rear compartment missing, chair supports totally different, etc.)

That's just a quick skim of some of the problems. Also, the communicator and tricorder cutaways that were shown in the promo images are missing.

 

I was looking at the demo pages on trekmovie.com, and the proportions of that CG TOS Enterprise don't look quite right to me. Also, the captain's chair seems to have robot legs tucked away beneath it - it's given me a mental image of Kirk sat in his chair, which has detached from it's mounting and is walking around the bridge on spindly legs.

 

I did buy it & have just begun to go through it but one thing I did see that I know will make some people crazy is the Enterprise-B is labled with a phaser array instead of phaser banks. I really don't believe it's worth the $27 price tag (I was actually shocked by how thin it is) but it is what it is.

 

Awesome! Okay, now it's a race to see which of us authors can work that image into a novel first...

 

The cutaways are nice but they don't blow you away and there aren't really enough of them for this kind of book.
The CG-models for the Enterprise-C and D are atrociously ugly (low-poly and only a passing resemblance to the 'actual' ships/models).

All in all it's The Good that Men do (the worst Trek-novel I've read so far) of the tech manuals.

 

You haven't read the Phoenix novels, have you? Or any number of others that pop to mind. Trust me, TGTMD is far from the worst.

 

I think it's nice to have for its coverage of all the prime-Enterprise's but could have been so much more. My biggest disappointment was that the book is packed with not especially interesting screenshots and doesn't have nearly as many diagrams as I’d like, which could have given us so much new detail. For instance there's a page on the NX-01's sickbay which is nearly filled with three screencaps, if that was one smaller photo and a nice big diagram showing the layout and details of sickbay that would have been fascinating.

The new diagrams there are, are very nice, though the layout of the book has the unfortunate effect of losing chunks of them in the bit between pages.

Some of the obvious missing stuff is also a bit disappointing; we get features on the NX-01 shuttlepods, standard TOS shuttle, Enterprise-D shuttles of various classes and the Enterprise-E captain's yacht, but don't see the Enterprise-A's shuttles, the rarely seen (and ripe for expansion) Enterprise-E shuttles, the Enterprise-D captain's yacht, or the various TAS shuttles.

I'd also have appreciated a bit more space given to exploring the various changes seen in the 1701 and 1701-A, and particularly missed even having a single image of the pointy nacelled Pike-era Enterprise.

I quite liked the format of the sections dealing with technologies common to all the Enterprise's, I thought that was a good way to deal with them. Though was again left with a feeling of incompleteness with how they did the alternate realities section; it covers the mirror universe, the new universe (with a standard screencap of the new Enterprise) and the multiverse of Enterprises as seen in Parallels, but no hint at the Enterprise-J, the All Good Things.. Enterprise, or the E2 Enterprise. That could have been a fascinating chapter all by itself, but was cramped into four pages.

Anywho, all together it's fun and interesting, but a bit light; it could have been so much more. If you own the Star Trek Fact Files it probably won’t add much, if you only have the previous technical manuals it might be worth picking it up for the bits on the other Enterprises that haven't been featured in a book before.

 

TBH, I've stopped reading Trek-novels sometime around the turn of the century/millennium (with the exception of the Shatnerverse and other Reeves-Stevens'-books).
TGTMD was the first after a long time and made me regret buying it.
But I've since read the Vanguard-series (which I really enjoy) and the Millennium-trilogy (which was disappointing) and will soon read Beneath the Raptor's Wings, the Mere Anarchy-books, Unspoken Truth (I enjoy Wander Bonanno's books), and the novelisations of TMP and Star Trek.

But the weekly Perry Rhodan series eats a lot of my reading time.
I wish Trek had something similar.

 

Have you read Kobayashi Maru? If you've read TGTMD and want to read BTRW then it would probably be a good idea to read KM too.

 

I was surprised at how thin it was when I saw it at Borders. I was leaning torwards getting it even though tech manuals just aren't my thing, I just liked the concept. But once I saw the book and thumbed through it I took it off my Amazon wish list. Just didn't seem worth the price.

 

The local B&N's computer thinks it's in stock, but a quick search of the store, with the help of a staffer, proved fruitless.

Everything I'm hearing is that there's very little new in this one, and what new stuff there is, is most likely wrong, which leaves one with the question of whether the novelty of having a Haynes Manual for the Enterprise on the shelf, and seeing the reaction of folks who see it, is worth the $27 cover price or would it be better to wait until it hits the bargain shellf.

 

I just bought it and am transferring it to my Nook right now.
I hope it's better than TGTMD.

 

^ In my opinion Kobayashi Maru is the worst novel (by far) in an already not very good Enterprise Relaunch.