everybody who works on the show – Gene is the authority. And when he says that the books, and the games, and the comics and everything else, are not gospel, but are only additional Star Trek based on his Star Trek but not part of the actual Star Trek universe that he created... they're just, you know, kinda fun to keep you occupied between episodes and between movies, whatever... but he does not want that to be considered to be sources of information for writers, working on this show, he doesn't want it to be considered part of the canon by anybody working on any other projects.— Richard Arnold, 1991 However, even this rule is not without rare exceptions. Two Voyager novels written by Jeri Taylor (co-creator and then producer of Voyager), Mosaic and Pathways, were written early on in Voyagers run and detailed the background of the series' main characters. These were meant to be canon, and to be used as references by the series' writers when fleshing out the characters. These two novels are sometimes named as exceptions to the "no book is canon" rule. However, as some of the background information mentioned in those books was never referenced in an episode of Voyager, or was contradicted in episodes written after they were published, their status as canon is still open to debate. Novelizations The novelizations of episodes and movies are not considered canon. This is a tradition that also goes back to Roddenberry himself. His novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture includes many tangents and new information. It reveals, for instance, that the woman who dies in the transporter accident was Kirk's former spouse. While this novel filled in many gaps left in the movie, Roddenberry is quoted as saying it should not be considered canon. Reference books There are conflicting messages concerning "non-fiction" reference books such as The Star Trek Encyclopedia, Star Trek Chronology, Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual. Unlike the novels and novelizations, these reference manuals have never been explicitly named as non-canon, and the fact that they were officially sanctioned by Paramount and given to episode writers as guides serves to give them an aura of credibility. Roddenberry himself considered it part of the "background" of Star Trek. Meanwhile, Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach, artists and technical consultants since Star Trek: The Next