Terran Trade Authority Handbooks.

[Spikes]

Just doing a bit of shelf tidying, and as usual, ive gotten sidetracked and started doing a bit of re-reading. This time its my old TTA books.
Which got me thinking, did anyone else enjoy these books?
There was four large format books in total  - Spacecraft 2000 - 2100AD (1978), Great Space Battles (1979), Space Wrecks : Ghostships and Derelicks of Space (1979) and Starliners : Commercial spacetravel in 2200AD (1980).
They were written by Stewart Cowley (with the exception of the 2nd TTA book, which was co-written with Charles Herridge), and featured art that had previously appeared elsewhere, but were used in the TTA books as the basis for Cowleys stories. My favourite artist being the incredible Peter Elson - http://www.peterelson.co.uk/



Spacewrecks was an absolute favourite of mine, and still is.

[Emperor]

I loved them at the time and still have them around somewhere (with some others that seemed cheaper cash-ins on the concept, whose pages tend to fall out). I remember when I got one for Christmas or a birthday I'd spend hours going over the lush imagery.

I see they've been updated and reworked but I'll stick with the originals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terran_Trade_Authority

[IAMTHESYSTEM]

Forgot what a great illustrator Peter Elson was. Those Stainless Steel Rat  Covers are still great.

[maryanddavid]

Never seen these, they look great. Might keep an eye for thes on Ebay.

David

[Spikes]

I remember when I got one for Christmas or a birthday I'd spend hours going over the lush imagery.

Yeah, same here. Was bought Spacewreck in either '79 or '80, it was an additional present that i didnt know i was getting, or had even asked for, but i totally loved it from the off.
Those other books you refer to Emp, were written by Stewart Cowley as well (sometimes under a pseudonym), they were largely unrelated to the TTA universe, though they did share some overlap. And yes, the pages do tend to fall out on those ones!

Never seen these, they look great. Might keep an eye for thes on Ebay.
David

I re-bought mine from E-Bay a few years ago. They may not be appear that frequently, but they do pop up now and again. Definitely worth tracking down, David.

Not that much about TTA on the net, but this site is pretty good - http://www.khantazi.org/Rec/TTABooks/TTABooks.html