Ships Of The Line 2014 Book
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An updated Ships of the Line book is due out tomorrow.
The book, edited by Doug Drexler and Margaret Clark, and featuring text by Michael Okuda, will be released in a revised hardcover book and in Kindle format.
“In celebration of one of science fiction’s most beloved franchises, this updated edition of the acclaimed Ships of the Line hardcover collection now includes more than seventy-five additional images brought together for the first time in book format — spectacular renderings featured in the highly successful Star Trek: Ships of the Line calendar series. With text by Star Trek‘s own Michael Okuda, the story of each of these valiant starships now comes to life.”
Three-hundred-and-fifty-two pages in length, Star Trek Ships of the Line will cost $18.98. A Kindle version is also available for $14.99. To order, head to the link located here.
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To what “line” does the title refer? It seems to be an unfortunate recall of Babylon 5, already a sore topic with the Babylon 5 versus DS9 controversy of who-stole-what-from-whom. The “the battle of the line” had actual meaning in Babylon 5. I don’t recall a “line” in Star Trek.
Uh, that would be a well-known naval reference that dates back several centuries and has nothing to do with B5 and nothing specifically to do with Star Trek.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_the_line
The images in this book have been created for the “Ship of the Line” series of calendars.
Good to know, thanks. It’s unfortunate that my lack of knowledge about naval history led to confusion about contemporary science fiction. I would doubt I’m alone, however.
I do think that general public knowledge of these terms is less widespread than in decades past. TOS relied heavily on naval terminology and concepts, especially at the beginning of its run, and that had a lot to do with the fact that many of its creators, from Roddenberry on down, were WWII vets. We got a lot less of this in the sequel series (DS9 excepted, to a degree), and what we did get probably owed a lot more to what TOS had established rather than direct familiarity with these terms on the part of the writers and producers (fewer of whom were military vets).
I wasn’t around then, but would imagine that in the ’60s there would have been many more in the audience who would have picked up on and appreciated the naval references. Of course I’m not one to talk, since I learned most of this stuff from Trek in the first place.
I’m not very knowledgeable with Naval terms but I think the average person would realize “ships of the line” would mean ships in Starfleet. Seems like a pretty generic term for any fleet of ships.