| Author: Anthology | Series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds |
| Rating: 9.5 (Jeremy's Scale) | Reviewer: Jeremy |
| Genre: SciFi | Publisher:Simon & Schuster |
| Pages: 381 | Orig Pub Date: August, 2006 |
| Binding: Paperback |
The 9th collection of the winning entries in the annual Strange New Worlds" short story contest. Non-professional authors spin their refreshing tales set within the Star Trek universe.
It was late Tuesday night/Wednesday morning that I finished my previous book and posted a review. Here I am back again less than 48 hours later with another review. I started “Star Trek: Strange New World 9” at about 1 AM. I expected to turn a few pages just to get a little taste for my latest book before going to bed. But I kept turning pages. And turning. And turning. I finally put it down at 3 AM out of necessity for sleep, not out of desire to stop reading.
That’s maybe the highest compliment that I have for this book, and I have a number of them. 47 hours. Work shifts. Grocery shopping. The routine of life. But 381 pages read. Despite everything else, I still tore through this book. If I’d have been able to read it cover to cover in one sitting I truly would have.
“Strange New World 9” is the ninth installment of this annual collection of short stories, representing the winning contributions of non-professional authors to the Strange New Worlds short story contest.
Beginning to end, these stories were outstanding.
The book was sectioned into the original series, the Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, Enterprise, and Speculations. There was something for everyone, from the lighthearted to the deeply profound. Ferengi,, Vulcans, Klingons, Tribbles, Borg, Jem’Hadar, the Prophets, genetically engineered supermen, and more surprises – it’s all there. Whatever your Star Trek fancy you’ll find it here, unless it’s the techno-babble that you fancy. These stories are about the characters, not starships and phasers, and EPS conduits.
Where this collection of short Stories differed from the “Constellations” collection of short stories that I reviewed a couple months ago is that where “Constellations” stories were written in the spirit of an episode of the TV show, the “Strange New Worlds” went beyond the TV show. In many ways they picked up where the TV show or the movies left off, or filled in gaps in series history. For example, I think the best storyline that Star Trek has ever done is the Dominion War in the late seasons of DS9. Granted, this was one of the few storylines that Star Trek has done, as the original series, and The Next Generation stayed away from story arch. I loved the entire Dominion War arch. Of course it was extremely Deep Space Nine-centric. I’ve always been fascinated with what the Enterprise was doing during the war. It was the flagship of the Federation so of course you knew it was heavily involved out there in the unspoken Star Trek universe. There are two stories that give us a taste. The war though was not the whole story. It was just the canvas that each story was painted on.
This collection was everything that I like in a collection of short stories. Every story with an exciting new setting, characters, and mood. Most of what I liked about it was that it was fresh. This is a review so I imagine that I am free to indulge in speculation and blind opinion. I think what I liked most about this collection was the freshness. I opine that this is because, as a result of this book being the product of a short story submission contest, rather than a professional novel under the guidelines of usual guidelines, storylines didn’t have pass through the judging eye of the caretakers of the Star Trek Universe. Stories didn’t have to meet the standard of being “canon” to the established Star Trek universe. There were ground rules to the contest of course. Grounds for disqualification included:
a) “any story focusing on explicit sexual activity or graphic depictions of violence or sadism,
b) any story that focuses on characters that are not past or present Star Trek regulars or familiar Star Trek guest characters
c) stories that deal with a previously unestablished death of a Star Trek character, or establish major facts about or make major changes in the life of a major character…
d) Stories that are based around common cliches, such as “hurt/comfort”…or “Mary Sue” stories…”
(From Contest Rules, Section 8 : “Story Disqualifications", page 371)
But beyond that, I think the authors were free to have fun. They didn’t have to worry about being told “No, Commander Data can’t be on Earth during the Dominion War, as in your story, because it was already established in book blah blah blah that the Enterprise was patrolling the Bajoran Wormhole”.
It was exciting. It was fresh. It dared to explore “Strange New Worlds”. It explored them boldly enough that I will be watching out for Strange New Worlds 10, and probably 1-8 as well in my future book buying ventures.
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