Caramel reviews Star Trek: Ships of the Line by Doug Drexler, Margaret Clark, and Michael Okuda

Caramel and the rest of the book bunnies household have been watching Star Trek Voyager during these months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Voyager is the third Star Trek series Caramel has watched, after The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. In other words, he is a little Trekkie. One of his favorite things about the whole series is the star ships. As a result it was natural that he would fall in love with the book Star Trek: Ships of the Line, edited by Doug Drexler and Margaret Clark, with text from Michael Okuda. Below he shares his enthusiasm about this book, as Sprinkles takes notes and asks followup questions.

Sprinkles: So Caramel, what do you want to tell us about this book?

Caramel: It’s a good book if you like space ships and that kind of stuff.

S: Do you also need to like Star Trek?

C: Not exactly. As long as you like star ships, you are in luck. The book is packed with pictures of star ships.

S: All ships are from Star Trek, right?

C: No, not quite. There are some real ships too. There is a picture of the United States space shuttle Enterprise.

S: I see. I think that also fits in the Star Trek universe narrative though, right?

C: I guess.

S: Are the pictures photos or hand-drawn?

C: I think there are both kinds of pictures.

S: What else can you tell us?

C: So on each two-page spread, there is a whole-page picture of a ship, and some writing.

S: What kind of writing?

C: There is a name for the photo or drawing and who it is by. Then there is a paragraph about the picture.

S: The content seems to be arranged in eight chapters (altogether in over 350 pages). Can you tell me a bit about that?

C: The chapter names are: “In the Beginning”, “The Creation of a Legend”, “Rebirth”, “The Finest in the Fleet”, “Of Gods and Men”, “There Will Always Be An Enterprise”, “Delta Voyager”, “Semper Exploro”.

S: Hmm, so I can guess that “Delta Voyager” is about the ships in Star Trek Voyager.

C: Yes, and “Of Gods and Men” is about Deep Space Nine.

S: And “In the Beginning” seems to be about the more recent Star Trek Enterprise. We have not yet watched that show. But so it seems that the book is telling us the stories of the star ships in the Star Trek universe in their chronological order.

C: Yes. Exactly.

S: Do you know who the people who put together this book are?

C: No, not really.

S: Apparently Drexler and Okuda both worked for the Star Trek shows, and Clark wrote many Star Trek books and novels.

C: Oh, I didn’t know that! But that is good. They must know what they are talking about!

S: Right! So Caramel, let us wrap up this review, but first give me your three words to describe this book:

C: Awesome star ships!

S: That works!

C: And stay tuned for more book bunny reviews!