On the run up to Christmas there seems to be a plethora of new Star Trek ‘Factual’ books coming out, one of these is Stellar Cartography by Larry Nemecek.
The book is actually billed more as a reference library as alongside a slim volume many of the maps are reproduced as a series of poster sized maps. The whole collection is presented in a fold-able presentation pack. In essence this resource is an update of Geoffrey Mandels Star Trek Star Charts from 2002.
The maps have been updated to include some of the history unveiled during Season 1 of Discovery, but in essence are in the same style with the majority of the same information. The maps are beautiful and work much better having some poster sized versions. It really gives a sense of the Star Trek universe. Explanations of the main races and their history are included written as though from an in universe expert.
The quality of the book is excellent, as are the maps. The poster maps are matt and I cannot decide if they would be better in a gloss format, I guess that is up to personal choice.
Such guides are amazingly deep and Larry (Dr Trek) Nemecek is a world authority on Star Trek , an official lore keeper. The book provides essential information for Trek fans although most will already be aware of the historical facts. I found the Star Charts invaluable when running a Play-by-messageboard RPG, being able to place locations in space helps to develop plots and bring a coherence to the star trek universe. I would recommend this book to any RPG’er or fan of the show.
A word of warning however, there isn’t much more information that Mandels original work and so I would suggest it only for the completest, to fill a blank or to take advantage of the posters.
Into the Nebula 
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