Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion

Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion is a reference book published by Pocket Books that provides an extensive episode guide to , beefed out with production background information, researched and compiled by its author.
==Summary==
;From the third edition book jacket
:On September 8, 1987 – more than twenty years after the original Star Trek series first aired – millions of Star Trek fans across the country sat down in front of their television sets for the debut of an all-new Star Trek series. No expense had been spared in bringing this new show to life – the creator of the original Star Trek series, Gene Roddenberry, was back producing the new show. Yet even the most faithful of Star Trek fans had their doubts – could the magic be duplicated?
:The answer to that question proved to be a resounding yes. Led by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D blazed a trail of exciting adventures across the galaxy. In show after show, brought to life a future where cooperation and mutual understanding proved the keys to solving Humanity's problems – and enabled galactic civilization to flourish.
:Here is the complete official guide to every episode of the television adventures of the Starship Enterprise and all four of the major motion pictures from to the latest, . This companion is a compendium of information including plot summaries and credits for each show and motion picture, as well as fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpses into the creation of The Next Generation. Take a glimpse into the show's incredible seven-year run, during which it reigned at the very top of the syndicated television ratings. Illustrated with more than 150 photographs, this is the official reference guide to Star Trek: The Next Generation.
== Background information ==
*Writer Larry Nemecek had originally intended to publish a collated version of his TNG season reference books A Concordance and Episode Guide, which were intended to be updates of the Star Trek Concordance by Bjo Trimble, a reference book that concentrated on . "After four years of those annually, self-published zines and then later made slick by Starland Denver and sold... I got the Companion deal," Nemecek recalled. "But it was a 'making-of,' not encyclopedic, so it was only a partial help." (Information from Larry Nemecek) This book was also fashioned to some extent after the earlier The Star Trek Compendium, another reference book which focused on TOS.
*This book was first published in and provided episode summaries and production information from through at the conclusion of the fifth season. Appearing as Season 5 ended and following the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, it was only the second, by Pocket Books, licensed non-fiction tome of the "modern" Star Trek era, and the first to provide a more detailed look into the production aspects of the series, though Larry Nemecek's previous writings and the review magazine Cinefantastique had already blazed pioneering paths in this respect with their in-depth Next Generation season theme issues.
*A later, expanded edition was published in and included information through the end of the series and inclusive of the first Next Generation movie, . In , yet another edition was released, this time covering , , and . Extensive use of quoted and paraphrased insights from writers, producers and designers first appeared in the Next Generation book, limited only by the format size. However, due to budget limits imposed by the publisher, the later film chapters were shortened in comparison to the earlier content and were simply added on to the 1995 edition of the book, with no updates to those sections.
*The use of quoted creators' material pioneered here was greatly expanded upon in a following trade paperback for , the , and then scaled back greatly, virtually abandoning it altogether, for the . No companion book has yet been issued for .
*To date, two internationally released editions are known to exist: the first one concerned the Italian-language second edition Guida a Star Trek: The Next Generation, translated from English by Paola Cartoceti for Fanucci Editore.
*Japan was the second foreign market which saw two editions of the Companion in translation; the second edition saw a Japanese-language release in as Volume 3 in the Japanese so-called "Star Trek Academic Research" series from publisher Japan Mix, Inc., and was translated into that language by Tomomi Hoshi. The deviant page count of that edition is due to the smaller manga-sized format the book was released in. A newly translated and expanded stand-alone Japanese-language third edition from publisher Dai-X has followed suit in .
=== Cover gallery ===
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, 1st edition.jpg|1st edition cover
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, 2nd edition.jpg|2nd edition cover
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, Japan 2nd edition.jpg|Japanese 2nd edition cover
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, Italy 2nd edition.jpg|Italian 2nd edition cover
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, Italy 2nd edition back.jpg|Italian 2nd edition back cover
File:Star Trek The Next Generation Companion, Japan 3rd edition.jpg|Japanese 3rd edition cover
== See also ==
*Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion - A Series Guide and Script Library
== References ==
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