Samuel Ramer's Coping with Your Trekkie.
Headline, 1997. Price: £7.99. ISN 0-7442-7642-0.

Review by Geoff Willmetts

When it comes to 'factual' Star Trek books, you can always work out how to date it by whether or not it covers the latest events. This one includes 7 of 9, so that's all right. It can also be the place where it can be dated should events change yet again, but then there are always updated versions that will get printed later.

The purpose of this book is to educate a non-Trekkie in Star Trek lore to enable them to get on with their apparently crazed spouses or friends. Bearing in mind the contents of Chapter 10, I would say the Americans have a worse problem than we have for talking StarTrekise.

If I carried on in the way depicted, I think I'd be locked up and this is the information to be used by a non-Trekkie!!! [I'll stick to the term 'Trekkie', not to be insulting but it's a common term that even this book's author uses and apologies for and, as we're adults, we all know what it means.]

As the Review deadline is tight and I've got to let a non-Trekkie read the book for a different assessment - that should come later - you'll have to settle for comments from someone who knows a little (a lot actually, but I'm not an obsessive) about the subject.

Sam Ramer has a friendly writing style that makes this book easy to read, encapsulating a lot of STrek mythology but still shows a tendency for assumption and repetition. In one of the early chapters there is a reference to 'nacelle' without explaining what it is. The same applies to which of the ST-TNG ladies appeared in Playboy without saying who. Even I'm not sure.

Bets are on it was Denise Crosby as Marina Sirtis was too frumpy and unknown at the time and Gates McFadden too much an actress and old for their audience! I'm not being picky saying this. It's the fact that Ramer dropped into Trekise assumption that was the problem. Knowing the subject, makes me wonder how many others there were but I ignored simply because I knew them already. Things really should have been spelt out more.

There are several chapters devoted to examining all the characters and were also unnecessarily padded. Encapsulated facts, followed by a biography which is then repeated in the significant key episodes strikes me as being too repetitive. I don't think even non-Trekkies are that thick. Surprisingly, sections on alien species and technology were more concise, so it might be a question of making up a word count.

Was there anything I didn't know? Worf accidentally killed another school boy at age 13 was new to me (probably in a DS9 episode I've yet to stay awake all the way through). Here's something a non-Trekkie would like to know the details about. At worse, it's technical manslaughter, so how come a person with such suspect control is allowed to join the all-so-pure Starfleet??

Then again what do the STrek writers really know about the reality they're writing in when they deprive Klingons of tear ducts and don't question how do they keep their eyeballs clean. Non-Trekkies want to know some of the logic behind what happened rather than saying, 'That's the way it is.' Knowing the why and attempting to answer them is the best way in understanding the interest.

The claims that STrek is up-to-date technology as it could happen - we'll forget recent press claims about warp drives requiring more energy than is available in the universe - in the future is still there. It's a shame that the biology is still less than junior grade.

The Ocampa females can only give birth to a single child is a noted example. Anyone with some background in maths, let alone biology, should see that this is hardly the way to have a population growth. A few barren Ocampans and the population will drop.

As commented previously, this is supposed to be a book that is supposed to explain, possibly convert, a non-Trekkie to the subject. Objectively, I would come away from this book wishing for a quick divorce based on some of the extreme examples presented here for fan behaviour.

On the other hand, if you want to become a complete fool, try out the examples in this book. It'll make a fun thing to do at parties.

If you're a Non-Trekkie, please be suitably warned and take up knitting or a martial art to pass away the Star Trek hour. If you're keen on understanding, then take a chance as at least it's readable.

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