Strange New Worlds, Vol. 5 (Star Trek) [Paperback]

Dean Wesley Smith (Author), Paula M. Block (Editor)

Book Description

Series: Star Trek Strange New Worlds | Publication Date: May 28, 2002

Back by popular demand! Our fifth anthology featuring original Star Trek,® Star Trek: The Next Generation,® Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,® and Star Trek: Voyager® stories written by Star Trek fans, for Star Trek fans!

The past five Strange New Worlds competitions have drawn thousands of submissions. This new galaxy of amazing stories, proves that our writers keep on expanding the boundaries of their collective imaginations.

Strange New Worlds V features newly released stories spanning the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries, from the early days of Captain Kirk and his crew to the later generations of Captains Picard, Sisko, and Janeway. These unforgettable stories explore and examine the past and future of Star Trek from many different perspectives.

Join Strange New Worlds in its thrilling quest to uncover the most compelling Star Trek fiction this side of the Galactic Barrier!

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Dean Wesley Smith is the author of over 30 Star Trek novels either solo or written jointly with Kristine Kathryn Rusch. He has edited all six volumes of the Star Trek STRANGE NEW WORLDS short story anthologies and lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction

Welcome to Strange New Worlds V. It feels wonderful to write those words. When we first started doing these contest anthologies, there was no way to know that the idea would work. Lots of things seem like they are destined for success and then turn out not to be.

The thing that has made the Strange New Worlds anthologies work, I think, is that they are a labor of love from all sides, from the thousands of fans who write and send in the stories (whether their stories are to be found in this volume or not), to the publisher and editors, who are all writers as well, and who understand the drive to get your story down the way you want to write it, to tell the Star Trek story that won't get out of your head.

Perhaps the most impressive thing, and a lesson to us all, is the number of stories about the cast of the brand-new show Enterprise that were submitted. With only days between the airing of the first episode and the closing deadline for this anthology, fans ignored all the voices telling them that there wasn't enough time, sat down and wrote their story, then -- and this is often the hardest part -- put their story in an envelope and mailed it in.

Because if you want to know the secret of how to be a professional writer, there it is: write the story, put it in an envelope, and send it to someone who can buy it and publish it. That's what the people in this anthology did, and you can do it too.

Best,

John J. Ordover

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Pocket Books/Star Trek; Original edition (May 28, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743437780
• ISBN-13: 978-0743437783
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,364,555 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best SNW to date, June 18, 2002

By 

Kenneth (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strange New Worlds, Vol. 5 (Star Trek) (Paperback)

The fifth Strange New Worlds anthology is the best to date. Although previous volumes have given us exceptional individual stories, such as "Isolation Ward 4" in SNW4 and "Whatever You Do, Don't Read This Story" in SNW3, this volume is excellent from start to finish.

There are stories from all five of the Trek series, which is sur[prising, considering how close to the October deadline for submissions the premier of Enterprise was. Yet these stories are some of the best in the book. For TOS fans, there's a visit to City on the Edge of Forever, and an exploration of just what kind of person voluteers to be a "redshirt" even knowing their high mortality rate. TNG deals with everything from investigating a new Leonardo da Vinci to Dixon Hill -- the real one, not Picard playing Dixon Hill -- saving the Enterprise. Voyager stories deal with the homecoming from two different angles and tie up a lot of loose ends left in the Delta quadrant -- including a wonderful resolution for Kes that more than makes up for the Fury. Sadly, there is only one DS9 story, but it is one of the best in the book -- set after the end of the series. All around a truly great collection and hopefully an indicator of things to come from Strange New Worlds and the fans who love to write about them.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Star Trek: Strange New Worlds V, May 27, 2002

By 

Joe Zika "Khemprof" (Cincinnati, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Strange New Worlds, Vol. 5 (Star Trek) (Paperback)

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds V edited by Dean Wesley Smith is GREAT. Unlike the forth volume in this set of anthologies, this edition has great stories and will keep you glued to the pages with stories from the fan perspective. There are 23 short stories in this volume and they range from TOS, TNG, DS-9, Voyager and something new this year Enterprise.

These stories are the winning enteries for this years contest and I must say... you established authors of TREK beware... these up and comers are good, with a little time they will bring Gene Roddenberry's dream forward. Adventure, thrills, action and intrigue all are found here with many different perspectives. This volume is, so far, the best overall of the five published to date and it is a vision of what is to come for TREK.

I wish the authors luck and keep on expanding the boundaries of the universe. You are only as limited as your imagination... reading these stories proves that imagination is well and working here. This is where at least 3 current TREK writers have come from and others have sold stories to other publishers.

Read this for a refreshing outlook of TREK.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Maybe I'm Getting Soft..., May 31, 2007

By 

K. Parmalee "Ubi Libertas habitat, ibi nostra... (Atlanta GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Strange New Worlds, Vol. 5 (Star Trek) (Paperback)

But I found myself liking the cornier stuff in this anthology. Well, maybe corny carries too many connotations of cliches and sappiness, but my faves all had an element of drama that I didn't notice so much in the other volumes reviewed so far.

Because I'm moving backward in time, certain rules cannot apply, such as banning Tribble stories from my reading. That relieves me from dismissing "The Trouble With Borg Tribbles" as a mere rehash of Bambi-versus-Godzilla. Good thing, because I made it one of my faves, and besides, the ending is not as predictable as one might think. Too bad the Federation doesn't know much about Tribbles...

"The Shoulders of Giants" brings to Trek stories a bit of the irreverence that one finds more easily in that other sci-fi franchise that begins with the word "Star". You know what I'm talking about. The story itself has a lesson for those who seem eager to take a few words from someone powerful and build a philosophy around it.

Yet my fave of all faves in the book is "Who Cries For Prometheus?", which even if the characters weren't designed to evoke sympathy, reminds me that for every Enterprise that wins an epic battle or goes out in a blaze of warp-core breaching glory, there are scores of relative nobodies that pass on with little notice.