Ten years ago, Paramount decided to give a second Star Trek series a chance and Gene Roddenberry was given the task to re-create the excitement and imagination of the original series.

Many doubted that it would succeed and early indications of the networks acceptance made it look like the project would be killed before it ever got underway. In fact, Paramount was forced to take the extraordinary step of starting the series in syndication and cover the entire costs of production. It seemed to many to be a extremely risky move.

Of course, we all know that Star Trek: The Next Generation was wildly successful but, it wasn't an easy task to bring the series to the screen nor was the production without its problems.

That is, basically, the point of The Continuing Mission. A tribute to Star Trek, The Next Generation and its production, The Continuing Mission is a lush coffee table-sized tome packed with photos, drawings and sketches covering the entire series from pre-production to the movies and beyond. Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens guide the reader through the chapters (seasons) of the series and provide an interesting glimpse into what went on behind the scenes. They cover changes in cast and crew, Roddenberry's death and other obstacles the producers had to deal with as the series progressed. Each chapter covers a season with pre-production and the post-production movies being dealt with separately. One nice feature of the book are the episode guides that are included with each series. For those readers that might not have actually seen every episode and memorized the entire plot, this is quite interesting.

The Continuing Mission contains something for both the hard-core fan and the casual channel surfer. The details of the production of a series this massive will intrigue just about everyone. The wealth of additional material in the form of sketches and pictures will undoubtedly please even the most avid fan -- there's even a picture of the cast doing a song-and-dance number on the bridge of the Enterprise in the middle of filming.

Wayne MacLaurin is a regular SF Site reviewer. More of his opinions are available on our Book Reviews pages.