The Finest Crew in the Fleet: The Next Generation Cast On Screen & Off.

The Finest Crew in the Fleet offers the first in-depth biography of the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Adam Shrager's exhaustive research reveals the actors who starred as the crew of the Enterprise-D. It details their lives, their non-Star Trek roles, and the development of their characters.

Released to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Star TrekR: The Next Generation, this work goes where no hardcover has gone before. While Star TrekR publications abound, this is the first book-length biography of the Enterprise-D cast. Synthesizing the types of data found at Trekker web sites and in magazines like Starlog and Cinefantastique, the work will undoubtedly delight fans with its reams of trivia and references to the stage and screen appearances of each actor. A Trekker and Princeton doctoral candidate, Shrager does a fine job of tracing the development of each character on the show, and his biographical portraits of the cast make for engaging, casual reading. Shrager falls short, though, in excavating such behind-the-scenes controversies as Gates McFadden's departure at the end of the first season. The overall result is serviceable but by no means remarkable. For larger public libraries.?Neal Baker, Dickinson Coll. Lib., Carlisle, Pa.
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