Customer Reviews

Ships of the Line (Star Trek)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

The vessels portrayed in Ships of the Line cover the length and breadth of the Star Trek universe. Arranged chronologically, from the earliest warp vessels to the futuristic Enterprise-J and darn near everything in between, this is a book you'll never tire of looking at.

Images of the U.S.S. Enterprise do dominate this collection but there are also wonderful representations of plenty of other Starfleet ships, as well as vessels associated with both friends and foes.

The variety of images is fantastic. Battle shots, alien landscapes, illustrations depicting the wonders of the universe and images that commemorate some of Star Trek's most memorable moments can all be found within the pages of Ships of the Line.

Each full-page illustration is accompanied by text written for each image by Michael Okuda on the opposite page. As you turn the pages it is a bit like an illustrated history of Star Trek as interpreted by Okuda.

Even if you've been collecting the calendars over the years that contain these same images, the high quality production values and the bargain price of $19.99(US) make Ships of the Line a must-have for every fans collection.

Sure there's some excellent artwork in this picture book. But instead of being an artistic guide to the ships of the Star Trek universe, 'Ships Of The Line' ends up being more like a photo album (albeit artist-rendered) of the central ship of each of the Star Trek television series. This is not anything close to a comprehensive spotter's book for the various Federation and alien space craft like the book's dust jacket suggests, which is EXACTLY the sort of book a Trekkie geek like me was expecting. Instead, this book lays out like a scrap book of the various iterations of U.S.S. Enterprises as it appeared on the various series and in film, the Defiant from DS9 and of course Voyager. Too few of the art panels focus on other ships in the Star Fleet inventory, or from any of the alien races that makes the Star Trek shows as rich and embellished as they were.

Too small to be a real coffee table book, and too lacking in the sort of minutiae information a Trek trivia fan craves to be useful as a real Star Trek reference guide, 'Ships Of The Line' needs to head back to the literary version of space dry dock for a content refit.

I waited four months to get this book, because I read reviews saying it was a 'must get' and receiving it today am so disappointed. The dedication in the opening cover is to the artists, who indeed did good work. The book is just too small to do their work justice. A number of reviews have commented on the size, so let me restate, it's just a bit longer than a hardcover novel, worthless for eye candy. It's like getting a thumbnail of a print you want full size and makes me wonder if the publisher did this so people couldn't, say frame a page or scan it. The side flavor text was done by someone who isn't a fan, in bland type, kind of insulting to the artists itself in it's lack of style. I guess I'd been expecting something along the lines of a technical manual for the ships too (like a Jane's guide). This is just a randomly ordered artbook. The Table of Contents is worthless and the chapter breakdown random. There is no index of ships or artists. Again very disappointed, not something that I'll keep or would put on my bookshelves. Sorry, this is a bad review, but it is heart felt and honest I really wanted to see better.

While the book is titled "Ships Of The Line", I can't help but ask, "Where ARE the SHIPS??" It would've been a much better read had the authors provided more illustrations of Federation Starships other than those Star Trek fans are accustomed to seeing on a regular basis (ENT, TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY). It also would've been nice to have seen ships from other races (Vulcan, Andorian, Klingon, Romulan, Borg, etc.).
Overall, it is a good read BUT, it could've and should've been sooooo much better.

I really like this book. Great artwork. But...
The one thing I'd change is that the book (at 11.25"x7.25") is a mite small for an 'art book' in my opinion. Leaves me wanting more, both in size and future editions. ;-)

Several years ago, there was an announcement in one of the Ships Of The Line calendars that a coffee table book was going to be released about the Ships Of The Line. It took an extremely long time before they got around to making the book, and now that I have a copy of this in my hands, I feel a little disappointed. Yes, there are beautiful CG renderings on the right side of the book from the calendars, but the left side has a very brief caption to what's in the illustration...that's it! A lot of wasted space in my opinion. I was hoping for a few more newly-commisioned illustrations, a lot more text and some ship schematics. An intro spread showing a ship scale comparison would have been nice too. I was also disappointed that they skipped the Enterprise B and the mysterious Enterprise C. On a positive note, the illustrations and print quality are top notch, especially the cover! I would love a poster of this! I would have given this book a worse review, but I love Star Trek ships, and a book showcasing them is better than nothing since Star Trek is a dead franchise at the moment. The size and format of the book didn't bother me as much as other reviewers. Maybe because it reminds me of a Dirigibles book I used to take out of the library when I was a child in the 1970s. That book had a similar format, cloth cover, and photos on the right with text on the left. To sum it up, if you love Star Trek ships, get this book, but don't expect a wealth of information or technobabble.

All things considered, a great book for the price. It's big enough to leave out on the coffee table, but small enough so that your blasphemously ignorant non-Trek associates won't mock you. The action shots are amazing, and the captions stir the imagination. Not being an avid Trek reader, I presume that these are taken from the novels?

That said, I was really hoping that the book would feature ships that we don't get to see very often in video (Enterprise B and C). I was really disappointed that the Enterprise B was repeatedly depicted as an Excelsior class ship, minus the refit, as it was depicted in "Generations" when it first launched. They even missed it on the cover!

Also, I wish the actual book cover matched the slipcover, but instead it's just about the plainest binding I've ever seen. However, I will be leaving the book setting out for guests to see, open to the purported Starfleet initial conceptual design for the refit Constitution class Enterprise.

I got my copy as a birthday present, and as such, it was well worth it. There are some serious limitations to the book, as mentioned in other reviews. The lack of detailed information or such reads like it was taken straight from the calendar series without any extra thought to it. The pictures are beautiful and I would recommend the book on the strength of the artwork alone, but at the Amazon price, not the full $20 retail.

The wildest thing about this book is the size --its so much smaller than I anticipated! I guess it never occured to me that the images in this book would be printed at about half the size they are in the calendars, but that, in fact, is the case. It looks like a book that has been cut in half! I've kept every "Ship of the Line" calendar, and the content of this book is wonderful. I was very much looking forward to this compilation... but now, I feel let down. Never a good feeling!

I was disappointed with it. Yes, the photos and artwork is great but I inspected more than what I got.