Star Trek: Picard—The Art and Making of the Series by Joe Fordham

(Titan Books, 2024)

Reviewed by David Lascelles

If you ever wanted to have Jean Luc Picard or Patrick Stewart strewn across your coffee table, this may be the book for you. Here you can see the man himself, in glorious and glossy full colour. For some Trek fans, this may be enough to justify the expense.

The Picard series ran for three seasons, with the final one airing in 2023. It brought Patrick Stewart back as Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Jean Luc Picard and sent him on a whole host of new adventures, culminating in the third season finale where the Enterprise D bridge crew came together again to fight the Borg (again). The three seasons had mixed reviews and responses from Trekkies but we aren’t here to cover that. If you are interested in this book and are reading this review to decide if you should buy it or not, one presumes you are already a fan of the series. Or at least a big fan of Patrick Stewart who wants to complete their collection.

This 208 page, full colour hardback book commemorates Star Trek: Picard. It presents photos and behind the scenes stories from all three seasons. In here you can see in depth information on all aspects of the production ranging from the early days of getting the series off the ground to interviews with the special effects and make up teams about how they achieved certain looks. The style is journalistic with the narrator’s comments about the production interspersed and illustrated with quotes from interviews from cast and crew members. This is not an unusual style to be using for a book of this nature and makes it very easy to read, with the words flowing along quite naturally in a very friendly tone. However, this style also makes it less easy to dip in and out of for specific information. While it is organised into sections based on season and individual parts of each season (for example, individual characters and ships get titled sections, usually spread over two or three pages with photos and illustrations) it is hard to find out specific details without reading the whole section. This can make it less useful as a research resource if you were, for example, looking to write an article on Trek or just win an internet argument.

But then, I do wonder how many people actually read a tome like this ‘for the articles’. If you are doing serious research, there are a host of online sources available that are searchable and so much easier to use. I suspect that very few would actually sit down to read this all the way through. OK, some might but not everyone is so dedicated. Why you own a book like this is more to show others that you own a book like this. You have it for the glorious photos and illustrations.

And, in regards to the visual treats, this book does indeed deliver. A mix of stills from the series, on set photos, studio images done for publicity, set and character design sketches and even full colour art are on display. These are all appropriately linked to the text and demonstrate some excellent graphic design skills. They make it a pleasure to leaf through, even though the size and weight of the book make long-term reading difficult.

Finally, it should be pointed out that this book definitely contains spoilers. Even looking at just the images will give a number of big reveals. However, again we are presuming that if you are interested in this book you have likely already watched and enjoyed the series.

Overall, this is one for those serious Trekkies who like to have a good conversation piece on their coffee table or shelf when they invite other Trekkies around for dinner.

Review from BSFA Review 24 - Download your copy here.