Star Trek non-fiction and novelty books aplenty in 2016

Time to buy some new bookshelves, with the fiftieth anniversary on the horizon, 2016 looks set to be a bumper year of Star Trek non-fiction books! Several new titles have recently been listed by online retailers, offering a diverse range of formats and styles. Continue below to check out the latest offerings:

From National Geographic, Andrew Fazekas brings us Star Trek The Official Guide to Our Universe: The True Science Behind the Starship Voyages, a cosmological tour of real places in space, as seen in Star Trek. This book will be released in hardcover format in June.

While starship captains have been exploring the final frontiers of the Star Trek universe, this book takes you for the first time to the edge of our real galaxy and beyond. Stunningly illustrated with hundreds of full-color, futuristic star charts, illustrations and astronomical photos, explore the real-life deep space destinations as seen on television and film screens.

Over its 50-year history, Star Trek has treated generations of viewers to a dazzling assortment of unforgettable images of the cosmos. Multiple star systems, alien worlds, supernova explosions, emission nebulae, and, of course, voracious black holes, just to name a few.

Star Trek: The Official Guide to Our Universe introduces you to the astronomy of Star Trek and takes you on a voyage of discovery, examining the true astronomical counterparts that can be found in the night sky. From Altair to Vega and from red giants to white dwarfs, readers can visit over 50 real celestial objects visible in the night sky, as known to the Starfleet Academy.

No warp driven starship or even a telescope required to go on these voyages, as most destinations are bright enough to be seen just with the naked eye. This guide is for anyone ready to launch their own mission into space—the final frontier. Your personal voyage to explore strange new worlds begins here.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.jp.

Insight Editions have their first Star Trek book, Star Trek Costumes, due out in a couple of weeks. When they first announced their license they mentioned plans for two travel guide books too, exploring Vulcan and the Klingon Empire, and now the first of those has been detailed. Due out in April, and also in hardcover, is Hidden Universe: Star Trek: A Travel Guide to Vulcan, which appears to be the mystery non-novel project Dayton Ward has mentioned a few times.

Plan your next trip to the planet Vulcan with Hidden Universe: Star Trek: A Travel Guide to Vulcan! Find restaurants that serve the best fried sandworms and Vulcan port. Take a trip to the Fire Plains or experience spring break at the Voroth Sea. Learn all about the native Vulcan people and their unusual customs. Discover how to correctly perform the traditional Vulcan salutation (you really don’t want to get this wrong). Learn key Vulcan phrases such as Nam-tor puyan-tvi-shal wilat: “Where is your restroom?” Find out what to do if you suddenly find yourself host to a katra—a Vulcan’s living spirit—at an inconvenient moment. All this and more can be found within the pages of this essential travel guide to one of the most popular—and logical—destinations in the known universe.

Hidden Universe: Star Trek: A Travel Guide to Vulcan draws on 50 years of Star Trek TV shows, films, and novels to present a comprehensive guide to Spock’s iconic home world. Modeled after real-world travel guides, the book will explore every significant region on Vulcan with fascinating historical, geographical, and cultural insights that bring the planet to life like never before. Also featuring a dynamic mixture of classic Star Trek imagery and original illustrations created exclusively for the book, Hidden Universe: Star Trek: A Travel Guide to Vulcan is the perfect way to celebrate 50 years of Star Trek and will thrill pop culture fans and hardcore Star Trek fans alike.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de.  

Also from Insight Editions is Redshirt's Little Book of Doom, by Robb Pearlman, who brought us Fun with Kirk and Spock last year. Due out in July, and another hardcover release, the temp cover reveals an alternative title, Poor Redshirt.

Star Trek: Redshirt's Little Book of Doom casts a wry, satirical, and reverential eye on one of the most popular and well-loved television and film franchises of all time.

It’s common knowledge that if a Star Trek character is wearing a red shirt, chances are he’s going to die. But there are so many other ways red shirt-wearers can be humiliated. By mining the humorous depths of Star Trek's most popular in-jokes—that anyone wearing a red shirt is doomed—this book chronicles the many ways one Starfleet officer's day can be ruined.

Poor Red Shirt just can’t catch a break. Whether he's dealing with real-life problems we all face like accidentally mixing whites with colors or being stuck sitting behind a very tall Gorn in a movie theater or trying out a standup comedy routine in front of an audience of surly Klingons, our hapless hero faces a universe-sized number of obstacles.

Featuring hilarious illustrations and witty gags that both pop culture fans and Star Trek fans will adore, Star Trek: Redshirt's Little Book of Doom is a fresh new take on one of the most beloved sci-fi sagas of all time.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp. 

This book will be illustrated by Anna-Maria Jung, who has done a few bits of unofficial Star Trek art before, including this red shirt T-shirt:

Aimed at younger readers, Price Stern Sloan have two more titles on the way in 2016 (in addition to the previously announced Star Trek Mad Libs book). In May Jake Black has the Starfleet Logbook, again in hardcover:

Star Trek: The Original Series is the spark that launched a sci-fi phenomenon! Now a younger generation of fans can move up the ranks at Starfleet, with help from Captain Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew on the starship USS Enterprise. Starfleet Logbook is filled with writing prompts, fun activities, and creative games that will help kids' imaginations boldly go where no man has gone before!

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp. 

And released simultaneously will be Brandon T. Snider's What Would Captain Kirk Do?, this one is a paperback:

Dig through the many pages of advice in this fun pop philosophy book as narrated by Captain Kirk, based on the characters from Star Trek: The Original Series.

The cosmos is filled with a great many wonders—uncharted worlds, bizarre life forms, chaos and calm. Tread carefully as you navigate through this collection of scenarios as Captain Kirk teaches you how to handle even the most challenging situations. The possibilities are as limitless as the universe itself.

Pre-order: Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr, Amazon.es, Amazon.it, Amazon.co.jp. 

Another paperback release in May will be The Autobiography of James T. Kirk, David Goodman's in-universe account of the captain's life, which saw it's initial publication in hardcover format this month,

On top of all these, we already knew about the updated Star Trek Encylopedia, due out in July. I wonder what else our bookshelves might have to look forward to later in the year.

For listings of all the non-fiction books coming this year and next, hit the appropriate button at the top of my 2015 and 2016 schedule pages.