Star Trek 1185: Voyager Companion

1185. Star Trek: Voyager Companion

PUBLICATION: Pocket Books, May 2003

CREATORS: Paul Ruditis

STARDATE: Covers all 7 seasons of Voyager

TOPIC: An episode guide that covers every episode of Voyager, plus information on the genesis of the show and the issues associated with each season, much like the Companions to previous series. Each episode has a list of characters and the actors who play them, a synopsis and trivia about the ship, other technology, people and places, the characters, and the production. Black and white photography is supplied for each and key moments and characters get their own articles either with brief interviews or episode lists that allow you to track any given concept through the series.

CONTINUITY: (Sing it with me) That's what it's allllll a-bout!

DIVERGENCES: None other than its format.

PICTURE OF THE WEEK - Well, at least SOMEone was happy about the finale.
REVIEW: Though it enjoys even better paper quality than the DS9 Companion, everything else seems to be in regression. I wouldn't even call it as good as the TOS and TNG books. In short, where is the insight into the series?! The Voyager Companion sacrifices the interview style of its nearest neighbor in favor of technobabble-driven trivia (appropriate, but still...). After the synopsis, we start with "Sensor Readings", which is just technobabble like it being difficult to replicate polyduranide. Then come Damage and Medical Reports - who got shot, what bit of Voyager was damaged (not that it wasn't fixed by the next episode) - and a Shuttle Tracker which gave me less joy than I would have thought. Similar lines of trivia are given about the Delta and Alpha Quadrants, then the characters and finally, very brief info on the production, which may only amount to "we'll see that character again in X". Even the many articles that pepper the book are low on production tales, instead too often opting to repeat information from elsewhere in the guide. Unlike its predecessors, the Voyager Companion looks like an unauthorized project, only really using information from the televised episodes and almost never going to the source. Well, I watched Voyager and didn't particularly enjoy it. I don't need to read the same insipid stuff with neither commentary nor behind the scenes information. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is probably why the book looks so pristine on my shelf compared to the others. There's no way I read it cover to cover. In fact, I'd forgotten I owned it.