At nearly 100 pages, Star Trek Discovery: The Official Collector’s Edition is a glossy guide to the new is a glossy guide to the new Star Trek franchise, packed with photos and snippets of information on the new show. It’s not aimed at serious Trek fans, more at anyone with a passing interest in the new show.

It starts with a short exploration of how the show was conceived, and a look at the writers’ room, before a series of profiles of the main Starfleet characters. It’s all very nice to look at and very upbeat. It’s got the sanitised feel of a carefully constructed marketing vehicle but still, manages to pull in the reader well. There’s a quick tour of Starfleet history, coverage of Sarek, and a decent piece on Harry Mudd, suggesting a large role for the character. We even learn which ‘80s pop star was the inspiration for his costume.

Next up is a large chunk of Klingon content, covering everything from potted history, to main characters via a good look at weaponry. As everyone should know by now, the Klingons have had yet another make-over and we get a good behind the scenes look at how this was done. In balance, there’s a similarly rich section on how they’ve tackled making the style of the show remind viewers of the original series, and again a good look at the design, with a great piece on Starfleet costumes.

The end of the book is a mix of concept art and advertising, an inevitable consequence of the need of the franchise to keep feeding on fans.

In the end, it’s a good skim through the basics of Star Trek Discovery and has enough snippets scattered about to add to any fans appreciation of the new show.

Designed to sit on the shop shelves with the magazines, it’s well priced and worth a look. Is it essential? No. But it is worth a read.

STAR TREK DISCOVERY: THE OFFICIAL COLLECTOR’S EDITION / PUBLISHER: TITAN BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 16TH