Rafe Needleman

This collection of Trekkish trivia questions (with answers and scoring charts provided in the back) was published in 1980, so, unsurprisingly, it's limited entirely to the original series. And, boy, is it some hardcore trivia. Admittedly, I've come to think of myself as something of a lapsed Trekkie, and the days when I had practically the entirety of the original series committed to memory are long, long past. But, still, I'm no slouch. My team tied for second out of twenty-six in a Trek trivia quiz once, and we were competing against some pretty serious fellow nerds. So I know my tribbles from my Tholians. But, while not all the questions were terribly hard (and there are even a few gimmes), there were also a lot of them that I just found myself staring at blankly. In some categories, I barely reached the level of Klingon. I do, however, apparently still remember just about everything there is to know about Spock. You have no idea -- seriously, no idea! -- how much of my life I've spent waiting for someone to try to stump me at Trek trivia by asking me what Spock's Starfleet serial number is, just so I could rattle it off confidently and declare myself Queen of the Nerds. Sadly, there was no one around to see when it finally happened, just me and the book. Still, I cannot help feeling a certain warm glow of satisfaction.

Anyway. Despite the frustrating reminders that I no longer remember half the stuff that I knew when I was twelve, and the fact that I might quibble with the formulation of some of the questions, going through these quizzes made for a fun trip down interstellar memory lane. It's neat what you can dig up at library sales.… (mais)