Star Trek Shipyards books previews

Penguin Random House have released preview pages of both of Eaglemoss' forthcoming Star Trek Starships books, which will collect and expand on the in-universe segments from the magazines from The Official Starships Collection, presenting them in chronological order, with new size charts and cool fleet artwork pages.

Tantalisingly the introduction to the books reveals Eaglemoss plan for this to be the start of an ongoing series, which after these two initial Starfleet focused volumes, will dive into ships of every species and region of the galaxy:

This is the first in a series of books that is designed to build into a detailed reference library. Our goal is to produce the most detailed and comprehensive guide to STAR TREK’s ships ever published. Each book will cover a different group of ships. This book and its sister volume cover Starfleet ships, which are divided by era. Other volumes will cover geographical areas, such as the Delta Quadrant, or political groups such as the Klingon Empire. The plan is that eventually we will cover every corner and every minute of the STAR TREK universe.

There are, of course, some rules. The ships are in this book are all canon ships that have appeared in one of the STAR TREK TV series or movies. Some of them are obscure, and were only seen as wreckage in the aftermath of the Battle of Wolf 359, but they were there. The ships in this book are all from the Prime timeline and don’t take account of the vessels that can be found in the movies that have been made since 2009. There will be a place for them, but this is not it. Likewise, you won’t find ships that have only appeared in books, games, calendars or the animated STAR TREK series from the 1970s. Nor will you find ships that have only been glimpsed in graphics or mentioned in passing.

What you will find, is detailed plan views of every ship, with carefully researched text that details their onscreen adventures. You will have the chance to pore over these to pick up details that might have flashed by onscreen. And, you will able to see how Starfleet ships have evolved over the years and how they compare to one another.

This book starts at the beginning with the first vessels in the STAR TREK universe that headed out into space, from Khan’s sleeper ship, the Botany Bay to Kirk’s Enterprise. It also includes all the Starfleet ships from the first season of STAR TREK: DISCOVERY, putting them in context between Archer and Kirk. It’s a book that we feel should have existed before, and we are incredibly proud and pleased to be able to bring it to you. It’s the beginning of an extraordinary journey that we hope will help to put one of the most exciting aspects of STAR TREK in your hands.

Continue below for preview pages from both of the first volumes, plus some other Eaglemoss book updates.

So we'll start with the contents page from the first book Starfleet Ships 2151 - 2293. This covers the Enterprise era (and before), and includes some general Earth ships as well as Starfleet ones, and then goes on into Discovery, TOS, and the TOS movie era.

I note the TV era USS Enterprise only has six pages listed here, so I guess we won't get to see Eaglemoss try and juggle the TOS and Discovery content together for this one ship!

Notably non-Earth 22nd century ships from would-be Federation members such as the Vulcans and Andorians (or indeed the very Starfleet styled 23rd century Medusan ship) are not included - But they no doubt could make up one of those future volumes, as could all the small-craft that are not included.

Also curiously absent is the ringship Enterprise, which Eaglemoss do of course already have content for, having released it as a special issue. But maybe that counts as one of those ships only seen as a graphic.

The "moon transport"?

What is listed is a "moon transport", which could be the same type of ship as Arctic One from Enterprise's Regeneration, which was seen flying around the moon in Demons (if not, that ship is itself oddly absent and I no idea what this is!).

Sadly a few other early Earth ships Eaglemoss haven't got to yet aren't getting early previews here, including the Orpheus mining colony from that same Enterprise episode. That means there's no content for the Ares IV, Friendship One, SS Conestoga, or the Sarajevo either. Which is a shame, as they would add nicely the the awesome spread that kicks of the first chapter of the book!

The second book is Starfleet Ships 2294 - The Future. It's going to be really nice to see all the Wolf 359 ships fully embraced into the fleet by presenting them as equals here.

Again there are some curious omissions (nitpicking alert), the USS Rhode Island (Harry Kim's future Nova class variant command) is not included. But maybe that could fall into yet another possible future volume of the series, looking at alternate reality ships such as the tri-nacelle Enterprise-D, warship Voyager, and mirror universe ships? Although if that's the case it's odd that the USS Pasteur made it into this book...

A more surprising omission, given most of the other kitbash ships have made it, is the USS Yeager, which Eaglemoss only recently released. Another kitbash, which Eaglemoss haven't announced a model of yet, the Miranda class variant USS Antares is also absent, even though we know Eaglemoss do have assets for this. The concept Excelsiors which have appeared as background ships are missing too, but again haven't yet been done by Eaglemoss. The Federation holoship is absent as well, but that could be squeezed in with Federation freighters and the like in yet another possible book??

On this plus side this volume does reveal a couple of ships Eaglemoss have not yet announced (formally at least) as coming to The Official Starships Collection, and hopefully this confirms them: There's another Miranda variant, the USS Lantree, the Federation tug.

The full spread for this final page hasn't been released, but even half the image of this cool fleet is exciting; it's great seeing all these ships together! There are in fact there are a few more half spreads on the Penguin Random House website, but the rest are all reprints of the magazine content so I wont bother to post those half images here.

The odd missing ship aside, these should be really fun books that offer undoubtedly the most comprehensive in-universe guide to Star Trek starships ever assembled (Starfleet ones at least), so I hope they work out well and we do get those promised extra volumes exploring even more ships!

Starfleet Ships 2151 - 2293 is due out in September, and is also available packed with a USS Enterprise model. And then Starfleet Ships 2294 - The Future follows in November.

UPDATE: Amazon have now released images revealing the packaging, and another preview spread from the book and model edition of the 2151-2293 book:

In other Eaglemoss books news, the cover for the reissue of the second Designing Starships book, The USS Voyager and Beyond, has been updated, adding in some Voyager concept art instead of a still of the miniature used previously. This reissue is due in January, following the reissue of the first book in that series, The Enterprises and Beyond, in October.

On Twitter Eaglemoss' Ben Robinson (who along with Marcus Reily is credited as the author for all these books) has confirmed the Designing Starships reissues are exactly the same as the previously released versions but with new covers. More interestingly he hinted at more books to come in this series too:

The Designing books are the same (so far) as the ones we published. I'm planning Discovery and DS9 based volumes for next year.