Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual [Deluxe Edition] [Paperback]

Franz Joseph (Author)

Book Description

This is the one, the only, the complete Star Fleet Technical Manual with everything you'll ever want to know about day-to-day life on the Enterprise. With architectural designs of the Enterprise, headquarters, detailed drawings of the weapons and equipment, official patterns for men's and women's uniforms, maps of orbit patterns and so much more, all your practical questions will finally be answered.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

This is the one, the only, the complete Star Fleet Technical Manual with everything you'll ever want to know about day-to-day life on the Enterprise. With architectural designs of the Enterprise, headquarters, detailed drawings of the weapons and equipment, official patterns for men's and women's uniforms, maps of orbit patterns and so much more, all your practical questions will finally be answered.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 20th anniversary edition. edition (July 12, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345340744
• ISBN-13: 978-0345340740
• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 8.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #154,822 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

67 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for every Star Trek fan, July 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual (Paperback)

Franz Joseph's STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL includes many design elements that might raise questions in fans' minds. Is the Enterprise's bridge really rotated 36 degrees off the ship's centerline? Does the Federation really have a starship with three warp nacelles? Is the Starfleet shuttlecraft really too small to allow its occupants to stand up and walk around?

If you watch the original Star Trek series and take its sets, props, and miniatures literally, then the answer to all the above questions is no. On the other hand, if you take Star Trek's sets, props, and miniatures literally, then the Enterprise has no bathrooms, Sulu and Chekov gain tactical information about enemy ships based entirely on flashing console buttons, and the Enterprise's warp nacelles spontaneously feature either large, colorful, flickering forward domes, or small, unlit, red spiked forward domes.

If you want a technical manual that is 100% faithful to the sets, props, and miniatures as seen in the original Star Trek television series, then the STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL is not for you. If, however, you want a book that takes the sets, props, and miniatures and extrapolates cohesive, realistic, and exciting technologies that enhance the believability of the Star Trek universe, then this is the book for you.

The STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL did far more than fuel the imaginations of countless fans. It also served as the model from which all subsequent Star Trek technical material is based. Gene Roddenberry himself was very impressed with the book and its counterpart, a set of hand-drawn, deck-by-deck plans to the original starship Enterprise. Although Roddenberry would later denounce the canonical status of the STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL, the book's influence on the Star Trek universe is widespread.

The very identity of the first two starships Enterprise is due in part to Franz Joseph's contributions. To my knowledge, it was Franz Joseph who first dubbed the Enterprise a Constitution-class starship, and that name made its way into indisputable Star Trek canon: witness Picard and Scotty's holodeck conversation in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Relics."

The "real" Star Trek universe does not exist on the television or movie screens, in novels, official magazines, technical manuals, comic books, T-shirts, posters, porcelain plates, or fuzzy toy Tribbles. The "real" Star Trek universe exists in the mind of each of its fans. The STAR FLEET TECHNICAL MANUAL helps bring that universe to a tangible and fascinating life.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Granddaddy of all recent "technical" S/F books & blueprints, September 2, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual (Paperback)

This book, in the 1970's, was the first
"technical" science fiction book, with
drawings made by a real aerospace engineer.
Due to its popularity--#1 trade paperback on
the New York Times bestseller list--it
spawned a host of imitators, both in the STAR
TREK and other universes.

This book was the "bible" for STAR TREK fans
in the '70's, who used it to build their own
props and uniforms because no mass-marketed
items were available the way they are today.
(We had to walk uphill 5 miles to achool
through the snow, too...)

This book was created with the full knowledge
and permission of Gene Roddenberry and
Paramount (I have documentation...). It was
published in 1975, in-between the end of the
first STAR TREK TV series (1969) and the
signing of the contracts for the first
motion picture (1976). At the time, Franz
Joseph, the artist/author, was told by GR to
"run with it" because the series was dead. So
the author made certain projections about the
STAR TREK universe that have since been
contradicted by later STAR TREK film and TV
projects.

A lot of time and thought went into this book,
and the reader should view it as STAR TREK in
its purest scientific form, before it became a
big-bucks Paramount franchise. The STAR TREK
portrayed in the TECH MANUAL is far less
Terracentric and far more Utopian than the
way the franchise has evolved through 3 series
and 8 movies. The original TECHNICAL MANUAL
was drawn entirely by hand (computer graphics
were in their infancy) and has now been
superceded by more slicky produced and
packaged STAR TREK "technical" books, CD-ROMs,
etc. But it is still the great-granddaddy of
'em all, and the definitive technical work on
the original STAR TREK TV series.

--Karen Dick, daughter of author Franz Joseph

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic, November 28, 2001

By 

Bernd Schneider (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek: Star Fleet Technical Manual (Paperback)

This is the classic technical manual that inspired a whole generation of fans in the Trek-less time of the 1970's. It is hard to imagine how Franz Joseph could collect all the information and draw all the nifty schematics with ink only, without the help of a computer back in 1975. Showing phasers, communicators, tricorders, floor plans and even uniform patterns in such a great detail, this book is a treasure trove for any TOS fan. It is even more valuable considering that Franz Joseph had access to much of the actual blueprints and props which he transferred into drawings that are often more precise than those of the computer-age technical manuals. Only the quality of his starship drawings is lacking.

Being a true fan and knowing that the series wouldn't continue (at least not so soon), he carefully supplemented the information on screen with his own creations, such as the Articles of the Federation, flags and emblems of member worlds, a design for an orbital Starfleet Headquarters and his famous starships. This is where some sort of dispute is going on. Especially many older fans still regard the Star Fleet Technical Manual as canon, considering that Franz Joseph had Gene Roddenberry's support on it. Some time prior to TNG, they didn't get along with each other any longer, and it is said that Roddenberry intentionally laid out technical specs of TNG so as to devalue Franz Joseph's work - but this doesn't really belong here.

Well, while many of the ideas are very good, it is probably too late to regard this whole book as canon, because the speculation in it is already too detailed. Too much of it, such as the location of Starfleet Headquarters or the map of the galaxy, has been contradicted since. Some things, finally, are simply silly, like the electric circuit schematics or the emblem of the alien civilization of 61 Cygni that -what a coincidence- has a swan in it.

Anyway, The Star Fleet Technical Manual has more than only nostalgic merits. I was a bit skeptical and I waited a long time until I finally bought it only two years ago, but I wouldn't want to miss it.