Battlestar Galactica: The Unoffical Companion [Paperback]

David Criswell (Author), Richie Levine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2003

A massive, 500+ page history of the classic TV series and current remake! A MUST for television fans of any generation!

Product Details

• Paperback: 450 pages
• Publisher: Imprint Books (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591099935
• ISBN-13: 978-1591099932
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,741,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars disappointing, December 26, 2003

By 

Christopher Weuve (Charlottesville, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Battlestar Galactica: The Unoffical Companion (Paperback)

There really haven't been any good books about the original _Battlestar Galactica_. I had high hopes, therefore, that this book might fill that void. Alas, the book only partially lives up to the task, because while this book has a lot of interesting background material about the making of the show, including interviews with all of the main players, it also is full of bad analysis, questionable logic, incorrect "facts", and a thinly-veiled political/moral agenda that is as grating as it is simplistic. Here are some examples:

** "Captain Apollo refers to himself as 'Strike Commander of the Battlestar Galactica.' Evidently, either 'Captain' is synonomous with 'Strike Commander,' or the leader of any given squadron is the 'Strike Commander' while on patrol, like an 'acting Commander.'" Or, perhaps, Apollo's *rank* is "captain" and his *job title* is "Strike Commander," either because he is Galactica's senior squadron commanding officer or because he has been assigned the primary strike leader "hat" in addition to his duties as a squadron CO. That the authors apparently missed so simple an alternative explanation implies to me that they aren't really familiar with the military. Such ignorance of military matters is evident in other places as well, and the book is rife with this sort of "2+2=22" analysis.

** "...should Battlestar Galactica return as a new series...the death of Lloyd Bridges would make the return of [Commander] Cain impossible for television." There must be an actor shortage I haven't heard about.

** "...why do female pilots need a pressure suit in space? Apollo says it is to survive the G-Forces [sic] that are pulled under battle but in space there is no gravity and hence no G-Forces." It's clear that the authors don't understand the difference between a g-suit and a pressure suit, and more importantly, exactly what g-force is and why it occurs. Apparently the authors have never taken a physics class or visited an amusement park. A simple Google search on "g-suit" would have provided the need information.

** The authors seem inordinately fixated on Cassiopeia's original job as a socialator, which they equate with a common prostitute in today's society -- Cassiopeia's comments about the history of the profession in the Colonies notwithstanding. The book has a very moralistic tone.

** The authors reinforce this bias with comments about "pseudo intellectual liberalism/atheism that has become so faddish" and that "There is little doubt that if Star Trek is a Democrat's science fiction show, Battlestar Galactica is a Republican's show." These statements are bizarre at best. One also wonders exactly how far they think this last analogy is worth carrying -- are they saying, for instance, that Republicans believe that all civilian leaders are idiots? (That's seems to be what the show is implying.)

I wish I could say that these excerpts were atypical. Alas, they are not -- in the third of the book (about 150 pages) examining the content of the show, virtually every page has such a howler. The sections about the actors and the history of the show are admittedly much better.

The final problem with this book is that it is chock full of spelling, formatting, and grammar errors, on average about one per page. Some are totally bizarre, like referring to the Nomens' "laser bolos" as "laser bowls." (I'd suspect a wayward spellchecker, if it wasn't for the counter-evidence of all of the typos.) Others are simple homonym substitutions, misspellings, missing words, and assorted other errors. There is simply no reason to believe that it was ever proofread -- or edited, for that matter, as there is a lot of duplicative material, like the book was assembled from a variety of sources. Indeed, several website authors are cited, and while the book (mostly) avoids the whininess for which the classic BSG online community is famous, this sloppiness makes the overall effort seem amateurish. I also question why the book is double-spaced -- perhaps to increase the page count and justify the $40 price tag?

In conclusion, this isn't really a professional publication; it's more of a really thick fanzine of good quality -- FOR A FANZINE. If you want to read a detailed history of the making of the series, with lots of interviews with the actors and production people, then this book might just be worth the rather steep price. (That's why I gave it two stars.) But if you are looking for intelligent, thoughtful analysis of the content of the show, you won't find it here.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars For Battlestar completists only, March 28, 2004

By 

Peter Noble 1964 "redbishop37" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battlestar Galactica: The Unoffical Companion (Paperback)

This book has hardly anything new to offer the hardcore Battlestar Galactica fan containing as it does information that is well known to fandom in general.

The sections on the show's ratings and X-Men producer Tom DeSanto's aborted attempt to bring back the show are good but these are let down by the book's poor layout, typos and poor editing (at one point the text starts going into a completetely different sentence fragment on Knight Rider!).

Also, it is poorly researched, for instance - more than once producer and creator Glen A. Larson is credited with the show Tales of the Gold Monkey, when in fact co-producer Don Bellisario created it!

This book is overpriced and not the definitive book on the original Battlestar Galactica, that is still to be written.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ENJOYABLE, June 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Battlestar Galactica: The Unoffical Companion (Paperback)

One of the biggest problems with this book is it's price. It costs too damn much. Many books by small publishing houses have this problem, but I picked this up cheap at a convention and liked the bits by Larson, Hatch, and the DeSanto info. The rest of this book may have little worth to most hardcore fans, but I'm a casual fan. I learned a few things. The points of view of the two guys who put this thing together may differ from mine, but that's what I expected from this type of book. It's two "geeks" expressing their love for their favorite TV show. It's a journey into the minds of the fan mentality. There are many typos, but hell it's unofficial and it certainly looks it. I think Wayne and Garth wrote this thing! I often couldn't believe what I was reading, but it spoke to the inner geek in me. I felt like I was listening in to the conversation of two rabid fans at Denny's at three in the morning...and I loved it!This book is far from perfect, and at times it's just plain wacky, but I can't say I didn't enjoy reading this. You might like it if you know the thrills of having a love affair with a show that was a childhood favorite. Just try and get this thing cheap.