Smallville, the hit series which follows the adventures of a teenaged Clark Kent and his friends - including Lana Lang, Lex Luthor and Lois Lane - is one of the hottest shows on TV. This volume of the authorised companion series explores the making of Season Seven, and is full of cast and crew interviews, unseen pictures, behind-the-scenes stories and a comprehensive episode guide. Also included is a look back on the phenomenon, an open letter on why the creator's decided to depart at the end of this season and a 16-page colour photo gallery...

The Official Companion to Smallville's Seventh Season won't offer any surprises to fans of the series who have bought the previous six books. Once again we get a synopsis for each episode as well as bits of behind the scenes information that will keep even the most clued-up of Smallville fans entertained. Dotted around the pages are bits of trivia and a list of the music tracks on each episode. There's also an interesting page dedicated to the Writer's Strike - which explains what it was all about and what impact it had on the show's seventh season.

Again, as always, the biggest complaint I have is the quality of the photographs that are reprinted. While, in the past, I've assumed that the grainy look of the images was due to the paper stock used, with this release I was surprised to see that the colour pic of James Marsters was a little blurry. However, it's good to see that the black and white pictures are, on the whole, a lot lighter - so that we can now see what they are of.

And, again sorry to state the obvious, but this book has a very narrow audience. Most hardcore Smallville fans will have access to the Internet and therefore will already be able to find all of this information for free.

That said, for Smallville fans who want a guide for their bookshelf this is as good as it gets. Again, author Graig Byrne has done an impressive job gathering the information and presenting it in an accessible format.

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Steve Mikando