A fine book, could have been better

A lot of the other reviews that I've read for this book have been very negative and dismissive of the publication. And while I agree, the book does have some faults, it isn't that bad. I suspect that the extremely negative reviews stem from the Voyager biast that many fans seem to have, but I won't discuss that. Here's what I thought of the book:

The Voyager Companion by Paul Ruditis follows all 7 years of the 4th incarnation of Star Trek, Voyager. The book is set out much like it's predecessor companions, giving details of each episode in production order, with accompanying stardates and production personnel and actors. The book does a fine job of giving all the details of the show, outlining the stories for each episode, and giving summaries at the end of the technical information and character development.

The book also features multi-page sections devoted to each of the cast members, occuring approximately one in each season, although some seasons feature two. The character sections are particularly good, and feature quotes from both producers and actors alike.

The Companion also includes a nice summary of Voyager's crew manifest, showing every named crewmember over the 7 years, with their accompany rank, affiliation (Starfleet or Maquis) and status (alive, dead, or departed the ship).

Where the book fails is with the behind the scenes information that made the other companions so good. Aside from the small introduction to each season and the character pages, there is virtually no behind the scenes information. And the comments of the production personnel are all positive, and do little to point out any mistakes in the show. Having such a sanitized book as this only goes on to prove that there were production problems with Voyager, problems that the producers want to hide. If the producers had the honesty to admit the problems with Voyager (there were some, not that many though) it would strengthen the show's repuation, at least in my mind. We're all human, we all make mistakes. Wisdom comes from accepting responsibility for mistakes and making provision for them not to occur again.

It would have been much more interesting to read a balanced view of the show, featuring detailed behind the scenes information in conjunction with the detailed episode data.

But overall, this is a fairly good book, and a fine tribute to the strength of the Voyager series. If you like Voyager, then you should read this book.

Not so much a companion, as an episode guide.

To a lot of Trek fans, the franchise came back strong with The Next Generation and peaked with Deep Space Nine. Voyager was the weakest of the three. The same could be said for the show companions. The companion for The Next Generation was pretty good. Better summaries of the episodes and behind the scenes info than the companion for the original series. But the companion for Deep Space Nine raised the bar. Packed full of info on the making of the episodes as well as detailed show summaries, this book set the standard. The companion for Voyager pales in comparison. It works pretty good as an episode guide. But there is not nearly enough behind the scenes information to truly make this a companion. The use of "Damage Reports" and "Ships Logs" to bring up bits of trivia isn't worth the space it takes up. Voyager was an enjoyable show, and this companion is nice to have. I just wish they put more effort into it.

Not bad Companion

Like many I was slightly disappointed about how the companion did have a lack of production/behind the scene information unlike TNG and DS9 companion which included that type of information. The Voyager Companion does have if positive side it does contain a good amount of information about the shows and aliens that made appears. I would recommand it for die-hard fans of Voyager.