Boldly Go Where No Book Has Gone Before ‘Star Trek’ Guide Logs Best Web Sites For Fans
It’s a little early for Christmas shopping, but you may want to head to the store now to pick up a copy of “The Incredible Internet Guide for Trekkers” for the “Star Trek” fan on your list.
The book, written by James Flowers Jr., includes more than 2,000 sites devoted to various characters, television shows and movies of the popular sci-fi franchise.
There is certainly no shortage of Star Trek sites on the Web. Type the keywords “Star Trek” into the Alta Vista search engine and it will produce more than 520,000 sites, with more added almost daily. The guide tries to sort through all the cyber junk and list quality sites, which it does pretty well.
There are the usual problems found in any Web guide, however, mostly because of the changing nature of the Internet. A few sites are no longer active and links on some sites don’t work.
Flowers tried to avoid the problem by notifying Web masters that their sites had been selected for inclusion in the book. He also plans to come out with regular updates, perhaps as often as every six months.
Flowers had done other Internet guides, including one for “Star Wars.” As a fan of the “Star Trek” universe, he had no problem spending hours on the computer looking for interesting sites.
“I would come across a certain number of sites that would say `I love Star Trek,”’ he says. “They don’t really offer a lot to the visitor. I looked for original content.”
And he found it. There are sites devoted to the various alien races that have appeared, merchandise, software, “Star Trek” art, multimedia, discussion, role-playing games and technology. There are also fan sites in Italian, German, French, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Portugese.
One of the oddest sites he came across is dedicated to Kes, a character on the “Star Trek: Voyager” series. The site has detailed descriptions of every outfit Kes wore and what she did while wearing it.
“That was kind of bizarre,” says Flowers.
Instead of just listing the home page of each site, Flowers also lists various pages of the same site in different categories.
“Some people are only into `Star Trek’ for a particular reason,” he says, such as a specific character, alien race or starship. Listing individual pages allows people to go straight to that page rather than visiting the site’s home page first.
The book also features a bonus that can’t be found online: a detailed stardate listing that combines all movies, television episodes, books and comic books in a single timeline.
Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. BOOKS Where to buy it “The Incredible Internet Guide for Trekkers” (Facts on Demand Press, 1999) sells for $13.95. It is available in bookstores, by calling (800) 929-3811 or online at www.brbpub.com/iig.
2. ON THE WEB Cool sites
Some cool “Star Trek” Web sites:
www.theborgcollective.com - The site has tons of images and audio files about our favorite villains, the Borg. There is also information about each movie and television series.
user.super.net.uk/nikolas (no www required) - This site lists all the latest news and rumors about the next “Star Trek” movie and television series, both set to debut in 2001.
www.ccdump.org - Called the Computer Core Dump, this site has information on everything from cast members to ships to weapons for all the different movies and television shows.
www.mainengineering.simple net.com - The site includes many video files, audio clips, photos, games and trivia.
www.startrek.com - This is Paramount’s official “Star Trek” Web site and includes character bios, information on episodes, Star Trek news, a store and a Ferengi advice column.
www.greatlink.org - Includes interviews with Trek producers and actors, reviews and information on the latest Trek news.
www.trektoday.com - This is a news-driven site, with information gathered from a variety of sources. There are also feature articles written by columnists.