| Author: Anthology | Series: Strange New Worlds 10 |
| Rating: 6 (Jeremy's Scale) | Reviewer: Jeremy |
| Genre: SciFi | Publisher:Simon & Schuster |
| Pages: 354 | Orig Pub Date: July, 2007 |
| Binding: Paperback |
The 10th and final volume of the best of the Strange New Worlds short story submissions, all written by fans. Again it's a refreshing perspective, but not as good as Volume 9 was (which I also reviewed).
My latest review is the Star Trek “Strange New Worlds 10” short story collection. The stories in this collection were the winners of the annual submission contest. I reviewed the 9th edition not too long ago and really enjoyed it.
I enjoyed volume 10 as well, although not nearly as much as its predecessor. There were still a wide variety of stories, spread across all of the series. It may be that part of the lull in the book was due to the story arrangement. It may have been intentional or perhaps it was random placement but the Grand Prize story, set in the original Star Trek era, was the first story in the book. It was a very good story. But then the stories that came after weren’t quite at that level. The “Speculations” stories, which were the last in the book, were also very good. Solid beginning, solid ending, and kind of indistinct in the middle, where the stories just blended into other stories and nothing seemed to stand out. Taking nothing away from the efforts of the other stories, and certainly keeping in mind that the eligible stories in this collection came from previously unpublished authors, it seemed like some of them tried so hard to be unorthodox that I missed the point of them. The emphasis of a couple others seemed just to be bringing together characters who had never shared a scene before. It was fun, but the stories didn’t resonate in the same way that the previous collection did. The collection of stories taken as a whole just didn’t flow.
That said, there were very high points too. Why would a being be desperate to be assimilated by The Borg? Why would The Borg have no interest in that assimilation? Those reasons make for perhaps the funniest Star Trek story I have ever read.
I always enjoy short story collections because it’s like panning for gold. There are always nuggets to be found, and the next one could be mere pages away. This collection had its nuggets too, which made it worth the journey. It just happens that in direct comparison to the previous collection, there weren’t quite as many as last year. According to the forward this is the last collection. That's unfortunate. I just wish that they'd been able to go out with a volume that was as outstanding as 9 was.
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