A relatively short-lived phenomena, the format came into vogue in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but went out of fashion just as quickly. The main reason for this was that very shortly after its introduction, the advent of visual home media formats, most notably VHS, became widespread, causing the perceived added value of the format to greatly diminish. Due to the visual effects imagery involved, science fiction franchises of the period, like Alien, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Outland, Battlestar Galactica, and Star Trek were well represented while the format was popular. As far as Star Trek was concerned, the contemporary publications of Bantam Books and Pocket Books have been particularly noteworthy. New outings in the format became nigh non-exis