Star Trek: Strange New Worlds I (Original)

I'm probably not what you would call a hard core Trekkie, which is to say that I enjoy Trek, I read some of the books and I've seen the movies, but I'm not the leading expert on the intricate details of the series' and such. I guess what I'm getting at here is that I find Trek highly entertaining, just in a casual fan way. That out of the way, I enjoyed the heck out of these fan stories. I'm more of a fan of the first two Trek series' and didn't really get into Deep Space Nine, and I've maybe seen one episode of Voyager, but I found the stories for all four series' to be highly entertaining. The Voyager stories made me actually want to watch the show. Not just entertaining are these stories, but they are creative and well written. I hope that each of these writers continues on writing, as I found each and every story presented here to be very good and interesting. One would like to see these storylines in some of the shows.I really can't say enough good things about this book, so I'll just stop it here saying that this was a really good idea. To each and every author published in this book: Kudos! Great job all around and I hope to see your names again. And all you fans out there who're thinking about it, bring on some more! I'm definately checking out the later installments.

Which is to say, not enough Trek short stories, just full-length novels. It gives more opportunity for a specialized story. Like a Mr. Data story. A Cyrano Jones sequel. What goes through Captain Pike's mind as an invalid. A story where Reg Barclay gets to be a hero rather than just swept along by events. A rite of passage for Cadet Nog. Lots of intriguing stuff like that. These stories may be by amateurs, but there's not a thing amateurish about them. This is the first of three such anthologies, and they're asking for contributors for a fourth. Here's a hint, all of you pro Trek writers. Don't leave it entirely up to us fans to come up with stuff like this. The very first Star Trek print fiction was when the late James Blish did adaptations of the Original Series episodes. In the form of (drum roll) short stories

Honestly, this is the BEST Trek book I've ever read, by a long shot. Trek was invented for the short format of TV, so it stands to reason that its admittedly simplistic characters and situations work better in a short prose format than in novel-length stories. Don't be put off by the fact that the writers are "amateurs" - they're better than the pros in many cases, particularly the VOY writers. Reading this book convinced me that the VOY characters aren't as bad as I used to think, and can be quite entertaining in the hands of inventive writers. If only the TV show were this good...

Strange New Worlds is an excellent book. I thought many of the stories written by fans were better than most of the stories written by professional writers. This book is a must have for any true Trek fan.

If this is really an amateur production, many of the so-called "professionals" had better watch out. The prose style of so many - no, all - of these stories is simply much more assured and compelling than a lot of the novels that appear month after month. The story "I, Voyager", for example, my favourite, is sheer poetry and breathtakingly beautiful. But that's just one gem among the many and to single it out is not to say that the rest are by any means substandard. This is a great collection with some words of wisdom at the end - that there really is more to life than Star Trek!