*** The Bird-of-Prey is the classic Klingon starship — a tough raiding and scouting vessel that has served at the heart of the Klingon Defense Force for more than a hundred years. Life on board is harsh and brutal, with any sign of weakness leading to a challenge to the death. The ship itself is stripped back and lean, with everything designed for a single purpose — war. This Haynes Manual traces the origins of a Bird-of-Prey from the moment it is commissioned by one of the Great Houses and constructed at the shipyards of the Klingon Naval Academy. It then proceeds to examine General Martok’s famous ship the I.K.S. Rotarran in unprecedented detail.
Featuring a stunning cutaway drawing and, for the first time ever, detailed deck plans and incredible new computer-generated artwork, the Haynes Bird-of-Prey Manual is a technical tour of the ship’s systems, from the bridge and engineering rooms to the disruptors, torpedo launcher, and the all-important cloaking device. In addition, the Manual provides a unique insight into life on board a Klingon ship and the Rotarran’s glorious history in the Dominion War.
This Haynes Manual is fully authorized by CBS. All the new artwork has been designed by STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and STAR TREK: VOYAGER’s senior illustrator Rick Sternbach, who is the world’s leading expert on STAR TREK technology, with CG renders produced by STAR TREK VFX artist Adam ‘Mojo’ Lebowitz. ***
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Yes, I am a Trekkie… I have a number of older novels around, and a few newer ones from this year, that one of these days, really need to be read and reviewed (hopefully before they go out of print)… Anyway, among those older books are the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual and a Next Generation Starfleet Academy Officers Manual (that I got at the Smithsonian when the Star Trek exhibit was there). Alas, neither have held up precisely well given they are softcover books, and both are only black and white pictures… not that I have minded, of course. This lovely book is hardcover and wonderful colored pictures, so will definitely stand up better with the test of time in my library.
This one is a little harder to summarize what it is about, and hopefully I do not end up just repeating what is up above – so, here goes. This is a technical manual for the Klingon Bird of Prey, but more specifically, General Martok’s ship (from Deep Space Nine, who even has the foreword of the book). There are diagrams, inside and out of the ship, with deck plans; the history of the Bird of Prey, going into the time of Captain Kirk; close up looks at specific systems, be it the all important weapons, or navigation, or computers. Loved the look at life on board – looks at the various types of crew members, their work schedules, and maintenance schedules. There is a comparison to other Klingon ships, and a little Klingon/English dictionary in the back for technical ship related words.
Most of the full colored pictures, if they are not diagrams or pics of the appropriate ship areas for the topic on the page, are from various episodes of Star Trek – mostly from the later seasons of Deep Space Nine with Martok and Worf, but a few here and from others as well (yeah to one of General Chang!).
The one really big surprise to me is something that if I had thought about it, I would have guessed Klingon ships did not have – and that was escape pods. Go figure, one learns something new every day. The one thing that was not a surprise is that while I love the Klingons, I would make a weak one – I always hated gagh, and still do – so wish that picture wasn’t in there of it. 
There are other books in this series, there is one for the USS Enterprise (all letters, original to E), for the Star Wars fans one for the Millennium Falcon (but personally, I’d prefer the Death Star or a Star Destroyer myself…) – but looks like I missed out on the Space Shuttle one, darn it, but the International Space Station one is still out… all on my wish list now! 
If you love Star Trek – but most especially anything to do with the Klingons – and want to know how the ship and crew life on one works, you’ll love this book!
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And a personal note – Yep, I’m finally catching up with review books to read and post (and a messy inbox with review requests)… this past semester’s class, while fairly easy and did get that A, was such a pain with the amount of work that was involved. The days that we had off because the professor cancelled plus the days the college was closed due to Superstorm Sandy did not help at all. So I barely read anything that had nothing do to with computers. Once it was through and with the holidays after, I started trying to catch up and continuing to do so. So first will be two books that come out this month, then two books that I tried to get to during November and December (one comes out in April, the other is already out), but that, quite obviously did not happen. But they will be read and posted by the end of the month as well – before the new semester, that is – *crossing fingers*!
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Klingon Bird of Prey – Hardcover
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