Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years
By David A. Goodman
Review by Maureen Russell
Don’t try to be a great man, just be a man. Let history make its own judgment.
-Zefram Cochrane 2073
Assembled as a Special Exhibit on Memory Alpha, Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years celebrates the 150th anniversary of the founding of the United Federation of Planets. This unprecedented illustrated volume chronicles the pivotal era leading up to Humankind’s First Contact with Vulcan in 2063, the Romulan War in 2156, the creation of the Federation in 2161, and the first 150 years of the intergalactic democracy up until the year 2311. Meticulously researched, this account covers a multitude of alien species, decisive battles, and the technology that made the Age of Exploration possible. It includes field sketches, illustrations, and reproductions of historic pieces of art from across the galaxy, along with over fifty excerpts from key Federation documents and correspondence, Starfleet records, and intergalactic intelligence.
Let me start by letting you in on a little secret. I’m a Trekkie. I wasn’t around for the first series, but my mother was. She was a science fiction nerd before the word nerd even existed, and she instilled the same wonder and excitement in me. I’ve seen all the series and all the movies, and used to read many of the Star Trek novels when I could pry them from my mother’s clutches. I’ve even gone to conventions. We won’t discuss the one year I was security and had to dress as a Klingon because I’ve destroyed all photographic evidence.
Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years is not about the series but the universe it inhabits. It’s deeply detailed, and if you’re not fully immersed in the Star Trek world, you may get a bit bogged down, especially if you don’t read Klingon or Vulcan.
The book reads part history book, part personal journal, part secret government file. It begins with Cochrane’s flight and the first Human/Vulcan encounter and ends with a eulogy for James T. Kirk. It spans the first 150 years of the Federation, contact with new races, and new discoveries. There are sketches and outlines for warp drives and uniforms. And war, let us not forget war. Everything a good historian from the twenty-fourth century needs.
While I claim my heritage as a Trekkie, I am not so in-depth a fan as to know each and every episode name, the writers’ names, the producer’s name, the hand grip’s name. I don’t own blueprints to the holodeck, but I did have trading cards and autographs, and, somewhere (to my shame), there’s a cassette of Brent Spiner’s Ol’ Yellow Eyes is Back. I love Star Trek in all its incarnations—even the new reboot, which I was quite anticipating to hate. So this book is definitely on my wish list; if you’re a fan, it should be on yours as well.
Sadly, as a mere reviewer, I was unable to get a physical copy of this book, and to really to judge this book properly, I’d need to get my hands on its cover and, well, all of it. Reading it online just can not possibly do it proper justice. The illustrations and art don’t fit on my screen properly, and I don’t get that same sense of satisfaction that you will when you flip back and forth between the Federation eras.
If you need a gift for a Trekkie, this is the gift for them. And now I think I’ll go find my Hallmark ornaments; I’ve got all of them, you know.
Buy It: But only if you’re giving it to a hard core Trekkie. It’s an amazing, rich book but not exactly something you’d buy on an average trip to the bookstore. This is something special.
