Looking for a Book

[Bobsan]

I'm posting this here mainly because I was inspired by the Traveller pictures thread.

Does anyone recall a book from back in the 80s. It was a large hardcover book that details various startships in the galaxy? It was written like it was Non-fiction, usually with a picture on one page (Of the ship or hulk) and specs/background on the other.

I've been looking for this book for ages but do not recall the title.

 

[EDG]

one of the TTA books? Spacecraft 2000-2100AD?

 

[Bobsan]

one of the TTA books? Spacecraft 2000-2100AD?

HOLY CRAP YES!!!!!

Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!Thank you!


I read this book all the time back when I was a kid and was one of the few books that got me into the world of Sci-fi and Fantasy (Half Magic and The Dictionary of Imaginary Places being the other two)

 

[GypsyComet]

Its a series of four coffee-table books. Aside from a couple groaners (mostly in Space Liners, IIRC), they're good stuff.

 

[EDG]

They did get re-released recently (by Morrigan Press I think?) and they even did a TTA RPG, but I wasn't impressed - they CGI'd the artwork and charged exorbitant prices for the art books. I felt it lacked the charm of the original (plus, despite vigorous claims from them to the contrary, they made the Alphans "space elves" and the Proximans "space orcs". It doesn't really matter if that's not what they intended, the overwhelming perception of people who bought the books was that they were just elf clones and orc clones).

Still, keep an eye out for those if you're interested - but the originals were much better (especially Spacewreck, IMO).

 

[alex_greene]

I too loved those books. I had all four at some point.

Actually, the shape of Serenity from Firefly, with its little goose neck, reminded me of one of the workhorse starship types from those old books.

 

[GJD]

I've managed to snag all four in the last few years, and used them for inspiration for a similar document of my own, Cargo Manifest, for Lightspeed (available free through RPGnow. Love them. The Morrigan images were fine, but the RPG was dreadful, and seemed to have an unhealthy preoccupation with the mating habits of the different races, including detailed descriptions of their genitalia....

G.

 

[Loz]

I had this too; its was brilliant. My favourite was the Piranha atmospheric fighter. Brilliant ship - great book.

I might just have to track down a copy of this...

 

[klingsor]

I remember either some of the same books or similar ones. We had one of the TTA books but others I did not get. They seemed to buy the art in then do the book around it. Some of the pictures were from the Brian Stableford Hooded Swan stories - the shape of the ship is very distinctive.

 

[EDG]

Spacewreck had something that Traveller sorely lacks - mystery. Every anomaly in Charted Space seems to be explained by Ancients, or possibly psionics. I find that to be incredibly boring.

In TTA you have derelict war worlds, ships colliding with their own jump shadows, spacecraft found in floating chunks of ice, alien wrecks of unknown origin, ghosts from past wars, alien ships that radiate sound, radioactive wrecks on godforsaken rockballs, transparent visitors, hydroponic labs going out of control...

It all adds up to a universe where humanity is very very small, and that the universe is stranger and more hostile than we are ready for. Every trip into the unknown should be fraught with risk, not from alien critters or jump mishaps, but from things that we have no readiness for at all. And that feeling is in no way present in the Charted Space setting.

 

[Alan Hume]

I htink it was reprinted in softback the other year
so it should be available at a good price now 8)