Star Trek: Lower Decks has been the one Star Trek property that focuses more on humor than drama.
So it didn’t come as a surprise to me that the Star Trek: Lower Decks Crew Handbook by Chris Farnell was filled with humorous bits of dialogue and inner thoughts while the reader is being taught about the Cerritos and the crew that runs the ship. Though only 175 pages, the handbook provides a lot of information about every aspect of the ship, with a lot of help from the junior officers.
Published by Titan Books, the Lower Decks Crew Handbook includes everything you need to know about what takes place aboard the Cerritos. You’re introduced to the crew, taken on a tour of main engineering, sickbay, and even the transporter rooms, where Chief Petty Officer Lars Lundy offers a Life in a Day: Transporter Chief. Before he can go into too much detail, he’s interrupted with an aside from Ensign Boimler with a “cut for space and some unnecessarily creepy details.”
Even if you’ve never watched Lower Decks, you’ll enjoy the crew handbook
In fact, this might even encourage you to give the show a watch as the illustrations are literally what play out onscreen as is the commentary from the cadets. With humorous takes like “How To Stay Awake On Conference Room Duty” and a message from Cetacean Ops , the U.S.S. Cerritos Crew Handbook is a must have for anyone who likes to laugh.
While some of the descriptions of important items aboard the ship do inform, others, like the Flux Coupler, are simply there for a moment of hilarity. But there are also some nice references to other aspects of Star Trek like the “Tucker Tubes” which were invented by Charles “Trip” Tucker, chief engineer of the starship Enterprise.
You’ll learn a few things while reading the crew handbook, but you’ll also laugh much more because of the interactions between the crew and the descriptive phrases Chris Farnell uses to capture your attention. You can’t go wrong picking up a copy of this handbook, whether or not you’re a fan of Lower Decks. Overall, it’s a fun read, and it’s available for purchase now.