I work for a publishing company, and our pop culture editor has been talking to Paramount about publishing a book on Battlestar Galactica (the new series, obviously). There are already official season guides out, and our editors want to do something a little fresher anyway, so they’re asking for ideas. I don’t watch the show, but I know there are plenty of fans here, so I thought I’d give you guys a try. What would you want to see published?
Listing, with pictures and info, on all the various ships in the rag-tag fleet would probably be quite popular, and have plenty to fill out a book with.
Character bios would also be a good idea. Even minor characters on this show seem to have very detailed backstories. And once they’ve been dead a while, it’s difficult for me to keep track between black-marketeer-Pegasus-commander and in-over-his-head-engineer-Pegasus-commander, say.
Browsing through a local bookstore this week, I saw that a fiction book is out already, featuring some of the TV show characters. So that seems to have been done. I’d probably buy a book with bios and ships and shit in it, but I’d hide it because that’s like serious nerd material.
Put out a set of Technical Blueprints or Fleet Manuals.
There have been several academic/philosphical works published about Joss Whedon’s writings, especially Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. I ran across another published specifically on Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series. I think it would be fascinating to explore the technological, religious, and political parallels between Battlestar Galactica and our world today.
Also, canon short stories would be wonderful.
“The Economics of Battlestar Galactica” would be a nobel-worthy accomplishment, I think. 
Hell, put out the scrolls themselves…
A history of the Colonies…
Clearly a Ship ID Guide… although many aren’t used, it’d be nice to be able to ID them…
Rolsyln’s Diary of the Occupation.
Tigh’s Whiskey Recipes
Kara Thrace’s AutoBiography (or, “How I learned to Love a Cylon, and many other questions you were afraid to ask”)
Leoben’s 'Swimming Upstream, how to be an individual in a world of Clones"
Baltar’s “On being a Functional Skitsophrenic.”
Saul Tigh’s Guide to Bartending
There was a Mr. Scott’s Guide to the Enterprise. I wonder if there is enough material you could use for a Guide to Galactica?
Well, since he drinks straight from a bottle, bartending seems rather, well, not his style…
making it when you run out… now that’s a whole nuther thing!
That would be serious drinking.
I’m sure there is a lighter, social side to him.
Definitely. Better still, include a chapter or two on the pre-disaster Colonial Fleet, with names of all (or many) of the other battlestars. Get Ronald D. Moore to write a preface and lend it his imprimatur, and I bet it’d fly off the shelves.
Uh, Paramount doesn’t make BSG, Universal does.
Hmmm…we may have been scammed…
Nope.
IMBD says neither of you are right.
Oh, joy. As if those type of books didn’t cause enough years of angry arguments among the Trekkoids. Now we’d get to enjoy BSG threads filled with fights over how the Galactica’s superstructure clearly wouldn’t support it’s however-minutes-long reentry drop. Ugh.
Upon further reflection, I think the best option would be a coffee-table book of tasteful nudes of Cylon babes, and Viper pilots.
And maybe Gaeta. For those that like that sort of thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I’d probably pay for a coffee table book with nothing but large full-page CGI renderings of ships and scenes from the show.
Mostly ships, though. And keep the filler to a minimum. You gotta earn my money.
include cross sections (exploded views) and high res photos of props like those star wars books…
How many of them have posed for Maxim?
The IMDb lists USA Network, which is a division of NBC Universal.
Well, as I said, I know nothing about the show - just going by my editor’s e-mail. I just re-checked it, and he definitely said “Paramount”, so I have no idea if that’s his mistake or if there’s some weird ownership issue or what. But thanks for the replies - if nobody minds, I’ll probably just copy-and-paste a bunch of them and e-mail them to him rather than try to put it all in my own words (because I’m sure I’d screw some bit of minutiae up).
Aha! Just got this in my inbox after I posted my last reply:
(emphasis added)
So I guess it was just his screw-up. To be fair, he doesn’t know anything about the show, either, which is why he was asking for ideas. Plus, being an editor, he’s most likely an alcoholic.