47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Starship Spotter Fails, November 9, 2001
This review is from: Star Trek : Starship Spotter (Paperback)
Starship Spotter fails for a number of reasons. Lets start with the title. The title indicates that this would be a book that could be used by cadets and other Starfleet personnel to identify starships. This would suggest that we would have multiple views of each chosen Starship. Well that isn’t the case here at all. What we get is a wire frame shot that is next to useless and a two page beauty shot. That brings us to the beauty shots. The vast majority of these beauty shots are entirely too dark showing little detail not to mention the fact that they cross two pages rather than be presented in fold out form. Voyager, Enterprise-D, Defiant are all from angles that we have seen time and again. All they offer are too dark renderings. Parts of the Akira class rendering seem to be out of focus. Another irritating thing was the inclusion of the Work Bee, Spacedock, The MIDAS communications array, and the various shuttle craft. These are not exactly starships. The one bright spot of the book is the excellent text provided by Jonathan Lane and Alex Rosenzweig. I just don’t think the editors or art department know what fans want in this area. Why didn’t we get multiple views of each ship and some schematics to go with them? The book measures about 8 X 10 inches and is a bit over a ¼ inch thick. It is 128 pages in length. At a cost [I got it for] it just isn’t worth the price for what one gets. One can only hope that Mojo brightens up the rendering for next years coffee table book.
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31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A promising idea that disappoints, December 20, 2001
This review is from: Star Trek : Starship Spotter (Paperback)
The "Star Trek Starship Spotter," by Adam Lebowitz and Robert Bonchune, is a good example of a great idea that is spoiled by a poorly thought out execution. The book seems to be modeled on classic "real world" reference works like "Jane's Fighting Ships." The "Spotter" contains profiles of starships seen in the fictional world of the various "Star Trek" TV series and motion pictures. Both Federation and alien ships, of all sizes and configurations, are included.
Each type of ship gets two 2-page spreads. The first is a technical overview with information on manning, propulsion, weapons, etc. The second 2-page spread is a full color illustration of a representative ship from that class. And therein lies the problem. Each illustration is actually spread over two pages. Thus, you can't fully and clearly see each ship unless you break the spine of the book in an attempt to flatten out the spread. This poorly conceived presentation greatly detracts from what could have been a great book.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Potential sadly unrealized., September 12, 2005
This review is from: Star Trek : Starship Spotter (Paperback)
The previous reviews are quite accurate, and should be read before deciding to purchase. For my part, I was overall content with the book, since I was more interested in the ship statistics and some of the "historical" descriptions than the artwork, so the admittedly disappointing nature of the ship renderings did not put me off as badly. However, the omission of key ships (see below) was a major disappointment, particularly galling was the insistence on describing things I could care less about, such as the Midas Array, "worker bees", etc. If one is going to limit oneself to 128 pages and 30 ships, then perhaps a little more common sense ought to have been devoted to selecting which "ships" to describe!
Another problem I had with some of the more exotic alien ships was a lack of information on their statistics, especially the Species 8472 bioship. While one cannot reveal all secrets, having everything listed as "unknown" is more than a little unsatisfying. At the least simply state observed qualities (i.e. maximum warp (observed) 9.46) or something similar.
I also agree that the line drawings of the ships were not as useful as they could have been. I would suggest either replacing or perhaps augmenting them with more standard 3 view drawings (front, profile, and top) as are given in the Star Fleet Technical Manual, for example.
It is my sincerest hope that a revised and heavily expanded 2nd edition will be released. Should the author(s) read this, here are some glaring omissions in need of being added:
- Excelsior class
- Ambassador class
- Constellation class
- Oberth class
- Daedalus class
- Borg cube
- Borg sphere
- Borg tactical cube
- Enterprise NX-01
- Klingon Negh'Var battleship
- K'Vort class cruiser
Very nice and much appreciated additions would be:
- Vulcan ships from Enterprise
- Klingon ships from Enterprise (a number of new designs are in evidence)
- The Romulan ship from Enterprise (the minefield episode)
- Other Earth ships from Enterprise (particularly the 2nd season finale)
- "Kobyashi Maru" Neutronic Fuel carrier
- Freighter destroyed in STIII by Bird of Prey
- Tholian ships
- Kazon ship
In spite of the unflattering reviews, this is a neat little book. For the price (on Amazon, that is), it is not a terribly bad buy. Wouldn't pay any more for it, though! However, there is much room for improvement, and I fervently hope the authors will take it upon themselves to release a vastly enhanced manual in the near future.
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