Review: STAR TREK VOYAGER -- A CELEBRATION • TrekCore.com

The silver anniversary of Star Trek: Voyager draws to a close with the publication of the massive Star Trek: Voyager – A Celebration hardcover, the latest publishing release from HeroCollector.

Written by Ben Robinson and Mark Wright, this hefty tome is gorgeously laid out and packed full of great behind the scenes details and art from the series as it takes you through the series from its inception to its finale.

Star Trek: Voyager has been one of the more under-covered series in published reference works. 2003’s Star Trek: Voyager Companion was a very disappointing book in comparison to its Next Generation and Deep Space Nine counterparts, and before that, Stephen Poe’s Star Trek: Voyager — A Vision of the Future was the closest we had to a Voyager reference book (though published in 1998, and primarily focusing on the show’s origins and creation).

Celebration succeeds in comprehensively breaking down all the various elements of the show. Each character gets their own spotlight, looking at the casting decisions behind the role, the character’s development throughout the series, and the creator’s intentions. Each section is a nice mix of actor, writer, and production staff perspectives to really give you a well-rounded look at each element of production.

In addition to each of the characters, there are chapters focusing on directing, music, visual effects, the art department, notable races from the races, along with a number of important episodes from the series run that changed direction for the series or introduced something notable.

The result is that Celebration is — as the title would suggest — a very positive book that looks on the series as an equally worth entry to the franchise as any of the others. That mostly succeeds, and if you liked Voyager going into this book, you’ll like it even more coming out, after learning new details to enhance your appreciation for the show and what it accomplished.

And while Celebration does retread a lot of familiar ground for Voyager fans — particularly in the character-detail chapters — there is a lot of new information as well, particularly from the production side of things. We hear more from figures we haven’t heard much from before, such as Voyager directors like David Livingston, series composer Jay Chattaway, and several members of the show’s groundbreaking visual effects team.

The book also has a lot of art, in the form of episode stills, concept art and behind-the-scenes shots from the set which are sure to have Voyager fans poring over them on repeat visits to the book. There are concept drawings for the USS Voyager itself, as well as a number of other ships that appeared throughout the series run, and even some costume drawings and alien makeup designs.

There are also a number of cute vignettes and stories from the series run, including a chance encounter between Ethan Phillips and Robin Williams, and the time Robert Duncan McNeill’s pants accidentally caught on fire. These little stories add depth and humor to the story of the show’s run, and humanize figures who we may otherwise only know as their characters.

Every series regular (save for Jennifer Lien) participated in new interviews for this publication, and lest you think that whole situation be completely skipped, the book also provides a more detailed account of the producers’ decision to terminate Lien’s contract ahead of the fourth season. Celebration reveals that the actress’s troubles, which have been well documented in recent years, were already manifesting themselves during the production of Voyager, which ultimately led to her departure.

That said, aside from the Lien bit — something truly unavoidable for this type of ‘deep dive’ book — there isn’t much more about some of other messier elements of the show’s production history, like Robert Beltran’s outspoken complaints about script quality in the later years, or the on-set difficulties between Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan (which both actresses have spoken about in recent years) — though thankfully the two actors seem to have found peace in the intervening years.

On the one hand, that does mean the book avoids venturing into the realm of gossip or airing tawdry dirty laundry for the sake of it. On the other hand, it does limit the book’s ability to provide a full, unvarnished account of the show’s history. The Mulgrew-Ryan relationship is not gossip at this point — it’s well-documented — though certainly it’s not something that would seem to fit into the positive nature of a celebratory book.

But overall, Star Trek: Voyager — A Celebration is a marvelous book, providing a thorough account of the show with a gorgeous presentation — and paired with last July’s Voyager Illustrated Handbook makes a great return to the Delta Quadrant.

Hopefully this is just the first in a series for Hero Collector; with the 20^th anniversary of Star Trek: Enterprise right around the corner, is it too much to hope that might also receive the same treatment given how neglected it has been in reference works?