Lego Space Projects, by Jeff Friesen

When I was a child I had a large lego collection and was fond of making a lot of ship models out of the blocks that I had. This particular book focuses on space projects (fitting its title) and has some 52 creative models, each of which has a fictitious label of the sort of space ship that is involved as well as instructions to build and a detailed inventory of the specific blocks that can be used to create the models. The author comments that the blocks themselves, when specifically ordered, are rather inexpensive, and I do not know if this is the case. If so, these blocks would indeed be worth purchasing if one has the space to set aside the various lovely models of spaceships of various kinds, all of which should inspire the target audience of young readers with visions of creating these spaceships for play races and fights and spy missions, all of which is highly entertaining. This book is part of a series, and if the other books are as good as this one, it is well worth reading for those of us who appreciate lego blocks as a model for imaginative play.

Overall, this book delivers on its promise of providing creative models, almost all of them of various vehicles that are involved in space or near-space travel in some fashion. If there is one weakness in this collection it is that the projects are nearly all ships and do not include places for the ships to operate on. I am not sure whether this is a plan for another volume that features space scenes like planets or star bases or something of that nature to serve as an appropriate setting for the spaceships and other vehicles shown here but if the author has an interest in creating another volume that will cover such scenes I would definitely be interested in seeing it. This book is an enjoyable one, it is a fast read and if you have a bit of room in your budget for blocks that can be used to build spaceship toys and enough room to store them safely for play, there is a lot here to enjoy. I am not sure how many people have found or would be interested in this particular book but so long as the custom blocks aren’t expensive there is a lot here that would be enjoyable to build and that other people would likely want to create.

In terms of its contents, this book is about 200 pages long. After some information about the author, the book begins with an introduction, a discussion on ship design, a discussion on bricks for spaceships and buying them, as well as building a display stand. The core of the book then contains more than 50 different designs of various space projects. Most of these are spaceships, and they are provided in alphabetical order, with dimensions shown in height, width, and length, front, top, and side profiles, information about the sort of vehicle, crew, purpose, and even fake manufacturer makes it, and detailed instructions with difficulty, specifications on which pieces are necessary, and instructions on how to put the vehicle or spaceship together. There are a variety of space projects shown, including a repair dock, satellites, fighters and battleships, spy satellites, planetary sleds, pleasure yachts, racing spaceships, cargo vessels, hospital ships, and the like. Some of the ships look like they could definitely work with other types if one is looking to build specific ships for purposes like long-distance exploration or diplomacy or the protection of spy assets, or setting up interplanetary races. The book, obviously, looks like it could inspire loads of fun.