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Star Trek: The Visual Dictionary book review .

With Into Darkness 's arrival imminent, this picture book provides a good way to get up to speed on decades of Trek continuity.
Covering the whole franchise, it itemises all the major races, vessels and conflicts, mostly in lavish double-page spreads.

There's only about an hour and a half's reading here, but then you don't buy a Dorling Kindersley book for the text. It's beautifully illustrated, with clever use of cutouts: for example, the profile of Picard is scattered with artefacts like his Ressikan flute.

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Hardcore fans will know it all already, and with vocabulary like "savant" and "polyamorous" scattered about, The Visual Dictionary is certainly not aimed at young kids. Ideal for a teenage Trek fan hooked by the Abrams movie who'd like to learn more.

A spread from the book about Star Trek: Enterprise.

Ian Berriman twitter.com/ianberriman

Watch the Star Trek Into Darkness first-look featurette .
Read more of our book reviews .

Ian Berriman has been working for SFX – the world's leading sci-fi, fantasy and horror magazine – since March 2002. He's also a regular writer for Electronic Sound. Other publications he's contributed to include Total Film, When Saturday Comes, Retro Pop, Horrorville, and What DVD. A life-long Doctor Who fan, he's also a supporter of Hull City, and live-tweets along to BBC Four's Top Of The Pops repeats from his @TOTPFacts account.