You found your way here: It's Stellar Cartography day!

I'm already hearing... from reviewers, from fans lucky enough to get an early delivery...

For today, finally, is the birth of my latest baby, Star Trek: Stellar Cartography, from 47North/Amazon and Becker&Mayer, a trio of talented artists, and concept folks who approached me about it last winter.
And I expect, for this newest generation of JJ/Bluray-borne Trek fans of the past decade, this title will really put Star Trek star-charting on the map.

So far, the early word has been great: "Lords of Kobol, these maps...I think I am going to need more walls...!" my twitterbud @StarbaseUGC declared Monday when his set arrived early ... his franchise-mixing forgiven.


"I have my set all over the floor—it has taken over my house!" an interviewer from WIRED magazine/website confided to me.

Did you reserve your copy on pre-order? (We'd love it if you used our link—and it's gift season, you know.) I'm just bracing for the reaction from all levels of fandom: canonistas, tech heads, art fans, armchair fans, Klingon fans, DS9 fans (see photo left), TOS fans... even general pop culture fans and map fans (yes, map fans).

(NOTE: These grabs are made from low-res pdf files;  actual printing is MUCH sharper.)

Now, nothing is perfect; I know in thousands of data points (and "gap-filling" in lieu of others) there are things we missed, or with a third or fourth voice might have tweaked a little differently. And yes, these are couched as being the Top 10 Most Viewed maps at Memory-Alpha—and having 2-D maps in a 3-D century is a bit of stretch.. but hey.  But this project is built on the sturdy and well-tested shoulders of those who have gone before; we didn't so much re-invent the wheel as come up with some new upholstery fabric, some antique accessories, and all-new foreign materials to make the body out of.

Need some details? Well...
I first talked about "Maps 2013", my own nickname—as opposed to Maps 1977, Maps 1980, and Maps 2002!—in this Trekland post. We did a preview at Vegas Trek, and startrek.com has carried both my thoughts and an interview with artist Ian Fullwood, who tackled six of the maps; the magazine and website 3DArt Direct carried an interview with Ali Ries, the other talented artist who completed three of the alien maps (at right). Sometime I hope to get some thoughts from my old star-map buddy Geof Mandel, who I've worked with on ALL of those projects to one degree or another—and who contributed the "kitchen sink history map" in this set.


Everyone who agonized over the limited book format of "tiny" pages in Geof's 2002 classic Star Trek Star Charts should love our ten varied 2x3-foot posters here—and you even get a LOCATOR INDEX for the main maps, this time around! My guidebook is not as sexy as the maps, but there's a ton of new observations, conclusions, imaginings—and, finally, real sense made of the Dominion War's "astrography,' which turned out to be my biggest single all-new contribution here (aside from figuring out how the heck the Delphic Expanse once fit into local space.)

In coming weeks online and live at cons I'll be talking about some of the hundreds of snap-decisions on "gap-filling" I made here, at times consulting the think tank when needed—our good friend John van Citters at CBS, and of course under the wrangling of Becker & Mayer editor Dana Youlin, who survived another sprawlingly dense Trek backgrounder after David Goodman's Federation: 150 last Christmas, and art editor Rosanna Brockley.

But for right now, I'd appreciate hearing what YOU think, no matter what slice of fandom you hail from. Please sound off here, if you will!  I already suspect we overlooked a beloved TOS "guest planet" that got clipped from the 2002 book (we did re-include many more of them); there's likely others, so we'll start a to-do list for the Next Iteration. At the same time, the text and maps (and a few name in-jokes) in this set will keep you scouring for hours... and, I'll bet, adding some 2x3 poster frames to your shopping list. Ali and Ian's maps are all somewhere between cool and gorgeous and deserve to be the works of art they were dually intended. And better get Geof's map framed as well: it'll save inevitable wear and tear from the fingerstains of constant use.

Yes, original and cool-concept Trek backgrounding is back, baby! Merry Christmas!

My secret's out and you can order it now: The Starfleet Stellar Cartography maps/book set

UPDATE: Just need to pre-order now? Quick link is here!


Yes, I can finally say it. The big Trek "secret project" I've teased but stayed mum on in recent months is out there: the Star Trek Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library poster map set and guidebook is now on Amazon for pre-order, as ballyhooed on the front page of startrek.com today. In case there was any doubt—Star Trek non-fiction is BACK, baby!

I do not know what is cooler: that we finally got to do evolved-canon star map posters suitable for framing, that we got to do starmaps from not only various historical eras but from various alien origins ... or that I got to update and "massage" some background gaps that have bugged canon fans like me for years.

Look, I don't want to spoil everything here—there's a lot in the press release, which you can see below—but just know that we didn't reinvent the wheel. We took the bedrock work of Geof Mandel in the 2002 Star Trek Star Maps as our touchstone—indeed, we got Geof back for a massive "historical" UFP map in the set of 10—and then got artists Ali Ries and Ian Fullwood to help take it from there for the various vibes needed. Together, they sweated a lot of our details—and that cover you see here does not begin to reveal the depth of what we get into.

You get the set of ten 2x3 maps I oversaw, plus the hardback guidebook I authored (at left)—all in the guise of a curated collection from the analog and digital archives of Memory Alpha. In those pages, we update for the Prime universe since 2002 (real-time) as of 2386 (canon time), we tie together a lot of threads like that whole confusing "Alpha Quadrant powers" thing, and we even deal with the onetime "Delphic Expanse" of Enterprise and, in a special update, JJ's Romulan subspace supernova.

What I may be most singly proud of, though, is for the first time finding a way to choreograph the known elements of the Dominion War onto that grid in a way that makes sense—including all that "threatened Federation homeworlds" business—and not only illustrate some major canon battles but make sense of those onscreen DS9 wall maps, too.

You guys who have read my "Fistful of Data" column in Titan's UK-turned-US Star Trek Monthly magazine since 1998 know my belief that most all canon hiccups can really be solved—and more simply than you think. This is actually my fifth time to work on a Trek maps project—the last four all with Geof in some way, amazingly, and the last three licensed ... and in all of them I got to put my credo into practice for that era.

I am so proud to have my name on this monster, and for everyone who worked on it—including my very patient becker&mayer! book editor Dana Youlin and art director Rosanna Brockley, plus CBS' John Van Citters, of course. They are veterans of lots of projects both in and out of franchise properties, including fellow background nerd David Goodman's incredible Federation: ... 150 Years book last year... but this was the most intense title for Dana and Rosanna yet. You'll soon see why!

The only bummer on the whole thing is that it won't release until Dec. 3, 2013—just in time for holiday gift-giving, of course—but you can pre-order now, exclusively at amazon.com (and no money due til it ships!). If you do hurry up and jump on now, every pre-order sends a signal to CBS and Amazon, etc., that we want more of this new-wave creative but intense non-fiction "gap filling," as I call it—since it may be some time before we get any on-screen Prime Universe backgrounding again. (For one thing, I do know that tabletop or paper-and-dice Trek space gamers will just have to have a set.)

We'll talk more, but for now know this:  If Stellar Cartography floats your boat and you are headed to Vegas Khhaaann in August, please stop by the panel already planned on this book and fire away on your questions. There'll be lots more to say and detail as we go along.


FULL PRESS RELEASE:

47North and becker&mayer! announce STAR TREK^TM Stellar Cartography: The Starfleet Reference Library

Officially licensed, georgeously illustrated collection featuring ten original, fully removable large-format maps of the Star Trek universe

From the publishers of Star Trek Federation: The First 150 Years comes a stunning new map collection straight from cartography archives of Starfleet Academy: STAR TREK Stellar Cartography: Starfleet Reference Library (47North/becker&mayer! On-sale: December 2013; ISBN-13:, ISBN-10: 1, $79.95).  These beautifully reproduced maps provide a rare opportunity to view the expanse of Federation space (and beyond) through the multiple lenses of the Galaxy's key players—visually expanding the Star Trek universe in never-before-seen ways. Compiled by Star Trek expert Larry Nemecek (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion) with illustrations by Ian Fullwood, Ali Rees and Geoffrey Mandel, STAR TREK Stellar Cartography: Starfleet Reference Library will release in December 2013.

The original maps include an ancient Vulcan map, a Klingon Empire map from the pre-Organian Peace Treaty era (in the native Klingon), an official Romulan government map of the Empire, a native Cardassian Union map from the occupied-Bajor era, along with Federation maps from the modern era. Housed in a handsome clamshell case and paired with a fully-illustrated reference book providing detailed information on planets, systems, and topography, this 48-page collection, licensed by CBS Consumer Products, will have something for Star Trek fans of all ages.

No Star Trek fan will want to miss this definitive collection. Visit www.amazon.com/StellarCartography to find out more about STAR TREK Stellar Cartography: Starfleet Reference Library and to pre-order this deluxe special edition book in advance of December. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Larry Nemecek is an author, editor and Star Trek consultant. He wrote the New York Times bestseller Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion. Nemecek edited the Star Trek Communicator magazine for eight years, contributed to Star Trek Fact Files in the UK, and served as a consultant on Star Trek: The Experience in Las Vegas. He lives in Burbank with his wife, Janet.

ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATORS

Ian Fullwood lives and works in rural Herefordshire, England, and has clients both at home and in the USA. With more than 20 years of experience in technical illustration and commercial art, Ian's love of the technical has taken him from traditional earth bound engineering type illustrations to the far flung galaxies of the Sci-Fi genres, illustrating more recently the maps of the Star Trek Stellar Cartography and previously Star Wars Vehicles, Weapons, Droids and Planets.

Ali Ries is a 3D digital artist from Salem, Oregon. Coming of age in the NASA era of Gemini and Apollo anchored her artist roots in space. Like many children of the Sixties she was mesmerized by Neil Armstrong’s historic first moonwalk, wishing she could be standing beside him in the grand adventure.

When Star Trek premiered on network television her future was paved with dream of some future in the world of Sci-Fi and Fantasy art or special effects. With the equivalent of a mental Hubble platform, Ali began creating astronomical star scapes, nebulae, and other space scenes as real as the night sky.

Today her work is used on book covers, television projects and other media around the world, including the recent SyFy network project, BSG: Blood and Chrome, Riddick 3 and Star Trek Fandom movies.

Geoffrey Mandel began his career as an art department P.A. on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Since 1995 he has worked as a graphic designer for films and TV shows, including many projects in the Star Trek franchise and various genre shows, such as The X-Files, Space: Above and Beyond, and the 2005 film Serenity, a spin-off the cult sci-fi series Firefly. In his spare time, Mandel designs and illustrates props, blueprints and star maps for various science fiction franchises, including the Serenity blueprints, and maps of the Star Trek, Firefly and Battlestar Galactica universes.

™ & ©2013 CBS Studios Inc. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc. All Rights Reserved.

About 47North

47North is an Amazon Publishing imprint specializing in books for readers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  47North offers a wide array of new fiction and cult favorites, from urban fantasies to space operas, alternate histories to gothic and supernatural horror.

About becker&mayer

For over 30 years, becker&mayer! LLC, the largest book packager in the U.S., has created hundreds of innovative nonfiction books and book-plus products for adults and children in formats that integrate paper components, digital content, electronics, audio, and other specialty features for publishers worldwide. www.beckermayer.com