Klingon Bird-of-Prey Owners’ Workshop Manual

Regardless of what kind of fan you are, the iconic Klingon Bird-of-Prey is a ship that is just plain candy for the eyes. The ship looks like a hunting falcon, poised and ready to strike. Inside the Klingon Bird-of-Prey Owners’ Workshop Manual, readers will find a plethora of information on the ship and its creators. This is without a doubt a must have for ship junkies.

At 128 pages, this hardcover covers a lot of ground and leaves no stone unturned. Every component of the ship is explored in detail with corresponding images and artwork. There’s a deck-by-deck breakdown of the ship as well as a specific breakdown for major components like the weapons, the shields, the cloaking device, warp coils, landing struts, etc. In addition to all the nitty gritty details, there’s a nice inclusion of Klingon history which helps put the ship in context with the Star Trek universe. The famous Rotarran gets a nice highlight and there are also images from the films and tv show scattered throughout. One of my favorite sections was the fleet comparison which details other Klingon ships. Each ship gets a full page with info and images. There is also a two page spread that shows a size comparison of all the vessels.

While all of the information was impressive, especially the detailed deck-by-deck breakdown, the overview of the crew was really surprising. The standard crew for a Bird-of-Prey is 36 people. The book actually details the full composition of the crew, their titles, and gives a summary of their role and duties on the ship. I was really surprised by that level of focus by the authors. Yet that attention to detail, and the willingness to include even the most minute of minutiae, was sprinkled throughout the book. Having read the Millennium Falcon Owners’ Workshop Manual, I thought this was a nice departure. While both books certainly include a lot of info, the Klingon Bird-of-Prey Owners’ Workshop Manual went the extra mile to dive into some heavy details. For example, there is a full page on the crew’s work shifts, a full page for maintenance schedules for the various parts of the ship, information on docking procedures, and even details on what food the cooks prepare for the crew and how much they keep in storage. Literally every detail you could imagine is seemingly covered, right down to the composition of the hull plating.

As mentioned above, this book does differ from the Millennium Falcon Owners’ Workshop Manual. This book is laden with a lot more details. As a consequence, it’s not as easy to read the book cover-to-cover, but it does make for a superior reference book. It’s a rough trade off. While the Falcon was an easier and more enjoyable read, I really appreciated all the extra information that was crammed into the Bird-of-Prey book. That said, the artwork falls short. While not bad, it’s nowhere near as good as the artwork in the Millennium Falcon manual. There are a few black and white illustrations of the ships, a few actually pieces of artwork, and a lot of photos and computer models. My main gripe is the computer models which could have looked a lot better. However, the imagery doesn’t hurt the book overall. The quality and level of detail of the Klingon Bird-of-Prey Owners’ Workshop Manual is impressive and well worth a five out of five metal bikinis which I’m sure Kirk would approve of.

Reviewed By: Skuldren for Roqoo Depot.