David's Reviews > Star Trek Discovery: Special Edition The Making of Season 1 Book

I finished another “quick read” book that had to get back to the public library today: “Star Trek: Discovery: The Official Companion” by Titan Magazines (2018). (That’s the title as written in the inside small print. The front cover adds “The Making of Season 1” to the end of the title. And, just to make things more confusing, GoodReads brings this up as “Star Trek Discovery Collector’s Edition 2”. I read elsewhere online that this was released in both standard magazine and hardcover book formats, which might be why this hardcover I checked out would be considered “Edition 2”.)

Like the “Voyager 25th Anniversary Special” (2020), this is largely (if not entirely) comprised of material previously released in Titan Magazines’ “Star Trek Magazine”.

Brief interviews (two to four or five pages long) with Mary Wiseman (“Ensign Tilly”), Prosthetic and Special Make-Up FX Department Head James MacKinnon, and Alan Van Sprang (Section 31 operative, “Leland”)); an opening overview article on the making of season one (in actuality a bunch of brief interview segments, one right after the other, from the series producers, costume designer, property (props) manager, prosthetics and make-up artists, visual effects supervisor, and musical score composer); a short section of pictures of the U.S.S. Discovery and the U.S.S. Shinzhou and other tech items like hand phasers, tricorders, and communicators; and an episode guide of all season one episodes (each with a plot summary with pictures and a few more relevant quotes from producers, actors, costume designers, make-up artists, visual effects artists, etc.).

Repeating what I said about the Voyager 25th Anniversary Special, this is by no means a must read, but it is an okay “quick read”. I didn’t bother reading the episode plot summaries, which made it an even quicker read. Some interesting insights here and there from the participants (of the original interviews either reprinted or quoted in this “Companion”) but most of them very brief due to the format here.