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The Star Trek: Voyager Companion is a trade paperback published by Pocket Books that provides an extensive episode guide for Star Trek: Voyager. Written by Paul Ruditis, the book was first published in May 2003 and provided episode summaries for every episode of all seven seasons, from "Caretaker" through "Endgame". It also offers some interviews with various cast members.

Summary[]

From the back cover
Over thirty-five years ago, creating a television series about a group of explorers making their way across the unexplored reaches of space was a gamble for a small studio. For the network that bought the show, it proved to be an even greater gamble, and after three seasons with "disappointing" ratings they cancelled Star Trek.
In the subsequent decades, a great deal changed. By 1995, Star Trek and its two successors, Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, had changed the face of syndication across the country. Now as the studio and its parent company, Viacom, looked to launch their own network, a new Star Trek series would easily become the cornerstone of the new enterprise.
In creating Star Trek: Voyager, Executive Producers Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jeri Taylor embraced Star Trek's original theme of "exploring strange new worlds and new civilizations," then took it a step further by stranding their crew in the farthest reaches of the Delta Quadrant, totally cut off from all that was familiar. It was a bold step, one that forced both the starship's crew and the show itself to stand on its own, its success determined by its own resourcefulness.
For seven years, Captain Kathryn Janeway and the crew of the aptly named Starship Voyager lived with one goal – to get home – and strove to live up to the ideals of Starfleet as they traveled alone in a tumultuous region of space. Relive their epic journey through summaries, photos, and detailed episode data in this official companion to Star Trek: Voyager, the series that proved once again the power of Star Trek.

Excerpts of copyrighted sources are included for review purposes only, without any intention of infringement.

Background information[]

  • This book constituted a format break with the earlier The Star Trek Compendium, Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion. Whereas the episode guides of these publications were increasingly beefed out with behind-the-scenes material from creators and production staff, this Companion had virtually none, save for the sporadic few cursorary cast interviews, shedding some light on characters.
  • The customer review section at Amazon.com showed that reception of the book by its readership was lukewarm at the very best. Particularly disappointing to them was the utter lack of background information, considered such a strong selling point in the previous outing, the DS9 Companion, and the book is therefore perceived as the weakest volume in the series of Companions.
  • Considered a deeply disappointing commercial flop, the book got a redo of sorts when a vastly improved work, written by Ben Robinson and Mark Wright for the series' 25th anniversary, was released in 2020 as Star Trek Voyager: A Celebration. Robinson stated on his book, "It's the book that Voyager always deserved and has never had. I am really pleased that we’ve been able to deliver it." [1]
Previous companion:
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Companion
Companions Next companion:
Voyages of Imagination
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