Customer Reviews

Strange New Worlds, Vol. 6 (Star Trek)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, nearly all of the stories presented in this volume were great - but there needs to be a few changes for SNW:VII. The first problem to over come is the fact that (in nearly every volume of STN) there are stories concerning Star Trek:TOS episodes"A Piece Of The Action" and "City On The Edge Of Forever". While these episodes are very good, enough about them. Let's move on to others. (With "City...." we get it - Kirk was very upset about Edith Keeler's death.)

The second problem is that there needs to be more Star Trek: DS9 and Enterprise stories. While the "Enterprise" series is still relatively new, there never seems to be more than three (some very short) stories in any given volume about DS9.

Third, no more stories centering 'exclusively' around Data. This is one Star Trek character that the fans need to let go of. Enough of Data, already!

The sixth annual anthology of Star Trek short stories written by the fans themselves proves to be a joyful project again. This year the editors have again put together a wonderful collection of adventures spanding the generations of Star Trek.

Captain Kirk and his crew were honored by six selections including the Third Prize winner "Whales Weep Not." This was a well-written piece about the natural investigation of the missing Gillian Taylor following her trip to the future ending the fourth feature film. I also have to throw my two cents in for TG Theodore's story and the best title in the book, "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer."

Star Trek: The New Generation has four stories. The Second Prize winner is nice piece titled the "The Soft Room." It leaves you wondering how things will be resolved as you continue to read on.

Although no prizes where give in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine group of stories, the three pieces include a wonderful look at Nog's encounter with the Boothby and the Kobayashi Maru. Shawn Michael Scott shows a surprisingly tight grip on the character and presents a growing-up story like a professional.

With the return to Earth of the U.S.S. Voyager, the dominant entries in the Star Trek: Voyager group dealt with the homecomings. One of my personal favorite stories was "Widow's Walk." Not all reunions are joyful occasions and this look into the recovery of Joe Cary's widow pulls at the heart.

The latest installment of the Star Trek world-Enterprise-boasts three selections. No winners in this group but a cute little piece demonstrating Commander Tucker's early high school days was well worth the read.

The Grand Prize winner forced a new grouping to be added to the categories. The Speculations section include stories that extend beyond the shows and demonstrate excellence in writing. Both stories here are wonderful but I do not personally agree with the selection of "Our Million-Year Mission" as the Grand Prize winner. It is a great story but I found other contributions more memorable. "The Beginning," the other story in this group, shows the creation of a group we all love to hate from a very unique perspective.

These twenty-three fans have added their individual view to a world they undoubtedly love and every Star Trek fan would be amiss if they did not partake in the strange new worlds of this collection.

Strange New Worlds VI outdoes some of its past editions in the overall quality of the stories. All were well done, with perhaps one or two exceptions (the Voyager and Enterprise stories were not that impressive). The good stories were really good. My favorites were THE SOFT ROOM, PROTECTING DATA'S FRIENDS, and BEST TOOLS AVAILABLE. The grand prize winner, OUR MILLION-YEAR MISSION, was well done but lacked the powerful punch I was expecting from the editor's introduction. If you pick this book up, you'll get a number of fun and entertaining stories that aren't "too far out" as some of the stories in the previous 2 volumes are.

Star Trek Strange New Worlds is excellent escapism, a majority the stories are well written and you can polish off 1 or 2 in any "before bedtime reading secession"

One of the things that I really enjoyed about this book is that you will find that fan written fiction will generally delve in to areas that "professional authors" won't go, or the fact that these are short stories, wouldn't be substantial enough to create a novel from and therefore not worth the effort. The most outstanding stories in this book fall in to that category.

You get quite a few stories of "Let's mix Kirk, Picard and any other character we can think of from different Trek shows", but they are done entertainingly and not nearly as geeky as it could be, if authors of lesser ability attempted it.

With any Star Trek book, you get the arguments of "that's not cannon" and of course Paramount has steadfastly stood by the claim that anything that happens in Star Trek books has nothing to do or add to official Trek lore. With that in mind some of the authors stories tackle subjects such as "solving the Kobiashi Maru scenario" or "Q with Kirk and Janeway"

All in all a good read, I would recommend it if you have read any other Star Trek books, but might not if you are new to reading Trek material.

I'm really enjoying these stories. So far I've read a few that are follow-ups to Official Star Trek episodes and movies. All of the stories are well written.

Of course, I know these stories are all written by fans of Star Trek. The stories in the book were judged to be the best stories submitted for each of the Star Trek worlds. There are stories from the original show, The Next Generation, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. Admittedly, I've only read through TOG & TNG and I'm starting on DS9, but I anticipate the other stories to all be just as great.

I'm glad I bought this book.

The sixth annual anthology of Star Trek short stories written by the fans themselves proves to be a joyful project again. This year the editors have again put together a wonderful collection of adventures expanding the generations of Star Trek.

Captain Kirk and his crew were honored by six selections including the Third Prize winner "Whales Weep Not." This was a well-written piece about the natural investigation of the missing Gillian Taylor following her trip to the future following the fourth feature film. I also have to throw my two cents in for TG Theodore's story and the best title in the book, "Bum Radish: Five Spins on a Turquoise Reindeer."

Star Trek: The New Generation has four stories. The Second Prize winner is nice piece titled the "The Soft Room." It leaves you wondering how things will be resolved as you continue to read on.

Although no prizes where give in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine group of stories, the three pieces include a wonderful look at Nog's encounter with the Boothby and the Kobayashi Maru. Shawn Michael Scott shows a surprisingly tight grip on the character and present a growing-up story like a professional.

With the return to Earth of the U.S.S. Voyager, the dominant entries in the Star Trek: Voyager group dealt with the homecomings. One of my personal favorite stories was "Widow's Walk." Not all reunions are joyful occasions and this look into the recovery of Joe Cary's widow pulls at the heart.

The latest installment of the Star Trek world-Enterprise-boasts three selections. No winners in this group but a cute little piece showing demonstrating Commander Tucker's early high school days was well worth the read.

The Grand Prize winner forced a new grouping to be added to the categories. The Speculations section include stories that extend beyond the shows and demonstrate excellence in writing. Both stories here are wonderful but I do not personally agree with the selection of "Our Million-Year Mission" as the Grand Prize winner. It is a great story but I found other contributions more memorable. "The Beginning," the other story in this group, shows the creation of a group we all love to hate from a very unique perspective.

These twenty-three fans have added their individual view to a world they undoubtedly love and every Star Trek fan would be amiss if they did not partake in the strange new worlds of this collection.

BEWARE OF THE SPOLIERS!

Well, we get a lot of stories from the Trek universe. My favortie are "The Best Tools" (ST:DS9) in which alien
bets a no-win program and "Our Million Years" (Spec.) which
is so oddball that even I mention I name in it, I spoil you. Every body who's is a Trekkie would think they died and went to
heaven!

...annual edition of ST fan fiction. Didn't agree w/the prize winners, preferring a Ferengi's take on the Kobayashi Maru scenario over the Enterprise mission that would never end, a Seven (of Nine) and (Gary) Seven cooperative venture over a detective looking for an AWOL Gillian Taylor (from STIV: the Voyage Home). Still, some very creative offerings, from the aftermath of death of Edith Keeler to Data's experience in the Nexus to a DS9 Spy versus Spy. There were some clunkers: temporal shenanigans involving Kirk taking the Enterprise-A back to be decomissioned and another w/Kirk using the Guardian of Tomorrow to hop on Voyager (ugh). But the good stories outweigh the bad, so pick up and enjoy...