 |
|
|
Your Ad Here for $5
|
|
JUNCTION POINT: NOT JUST ANOTHER PBeM RPG!
Junction Point is a freefloating space station that is located in that
dark area between Gorn, Tholian, and Klingon space, within a whiff of
the Romulan Empire. K7, as we call it, is adjacent to Sherman's
Planet, where, just 76 years before, the tribble incident took place.
We're set in the year 2380, after the Borg encounters and the Dominion
War, at the very end of the ST-TV timelines. This is a very fastpaced
game composed of a solid base of experienced and expert players, some
of them professionally published in the SF-Fantasy genre. Our location
is junction.the-fgn.org and we're always ready to welcome a few
new players into our warm and friendly community. If our roster appears full at the positions that interest you, don't
let that discourage you from joining. There's enough posting for
duplications in Senior Officer positions and the imagination's the
limit on civilian and other personnel.
We're expecting to be around for a long time, so if you come, plan to stay! We can be reached by clicking Contact Administration or Joining the Game on our site.
(0 comments | Add)
|
|
Posted:
21:30:43 on May 12 2002
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Reviews - Books | Books BBS Forum
STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V
Edited by Dean Wesley Smith with Jon J. Ordover and Paula M. Block
Pocket Books, 2002
371 pages including Introduction by John J. Ordover, Afterword by Dean Wesley Smith and Contest Rules for Strange New Worlds VI
Written for TrekWeb by Alexander Chase, edited by Steve Krutzler
The excitement sparked by the annual nationwide search for original short fiction penned by Star Trek fans has by now reached the fever pitch of a Federation-Borg face off. STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V represents the very best of the roughly five thousand stories submitted. Coupled with the massive press coverage always met by the release of the STRANGE NEW WORLDS edition, the winning scribes will also be invited to participate in interactive conferences on the Internet. A dazzling showcase for imaginative new writing talent, STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V also includes an open invitation for Star Trek fans to submit their work for consideration in next year's contest.
Anthologies as a whole are difficult to review because by their very nature they are a collection of disparate writers whose talents and stories are... well, disparate. So, how then to best judge STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V and make a recommendation? Is its "worth" solely derived by the best the anthology has to offer? Hypothetically, what if there are twenty-five short stories in the collection but only two really worthwhile selections included? Does the worthiness of the two weigh more heavily than the mundane nature of the twenty-three? And do those two stories really warrant a book price of, say $25.00? What about $15.00 or $10.00? Does the reviewer take into account which stories won prizes (when there are prizes awarded, as they were in the STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V collection), and whether or not the judges made a correct decision?
You can see the problem.
In the end, it seems that the best way to proceed is to provide a rating for each short story in the collection, providing some woefully-brief feedback on every author's story (see below). Hopefully, this is something everyone (authors included) will appreciate. For the anthology as a whole, I'm then going to take the easy way out and simply compile the average of all the ratings, make some comments about the best of the collection, how this relates (or not) to the judges' prize winners, and what the overall pattern of the collection might have to say about the state of its overriding theme, in this case Star Trek. It is hoped that this will provide enough information for the reader to make an informed decision about whether or not STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V is for you.
The most interesting aspect of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V is that the best and brightest short stories in this collection are set in what are generally considered to be Star Trek's weakest series: VOY and ENT. One can easily come away from STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V with the impression that this is as much an indictment of the dismal state of recent writing on Star Trek television series as it is an acknowledgement of these short story writers' talents. What does it say about Star Trek: Voyager the series that authors Penny A. Proctor and Catherine E. Pike embed well-established VOY's characters with a texture and emotional power (and incidentally, more fitting resolution) rarely seen on the series itself? Or that Cynthia K. Deatherage takes a throwaway guest star seen only once as a prop for Seven of Nine's struggles with her own humanity and creates a back story for her which adds a dramatic weight to her singular scene noticeably lacking at the time and desperately needed? Pike's short story Fragment is a character tour de force focused on Seven of Nine's fears set immediately after the series finale, "Endgame". In Pike's story, Seven of Nine, Belanna Torres, Naomi Wildman and even the little seen Bajoran Ensign Tal Cetes shine as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances with hopes, dreams and real fears about what VOY's return to Earth means to them and to their "family". Pike's Fragment is, in every way, the emotional resolution to VOY which "Endgame" should have been and didn't come within 70,000 lights years of being. The fact that, at the very least, three other short stories (none better than average) in STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V were deemed more deserving of prizes than Pike's Fragment suggest an almost criminal negligence on the part of the judges.
In the same vein, Penny A. Proctor's Restoration provides a resolution to Kes' journey which is so much more fitting for the character than that atrocity of an episode called "Fury", it is almost painful to read. In both cases, one can only conclude the fact that "fan fiction" had so thoroughly surpassed the writing on the series that the judges were too embarrassed to give the authors their due credit. Taking a different tact is T.G. Theodore's On the Rocks, a wicked satire of what is generally regarded as one of the worst - if not worst - Star Trek episodes of all time: "Threshold". Told from the point of view of Paris and Janeway's salamander offspring, On the Rocks is a case study in taking lemons and turning them into lemonade. Theodore is adept at transforming the sheer awfulness of the source material into a biting satire on the series itself, even twisting VOY's noted reputation for being retread Trek as the Paris/Janeway offspring are named after, you guess it, the people they knew on VOY. Unoriginality becomes a source for originality and Theodore's story is a testament to the power of the "poisoned pen."
Going through some of the other highlights quickly, Kelle Vozka's Hoshi's Gift satisfactorily resolves the inward conflict of the ENT's communications officer introduced in the series pilot "Broken Bow" in a way that the series itself had fundamentally failed. John Takis' A Girl For Every Star tells the story of an eleven-year old Jonathan Archer's "first contact" with a Vulcan, a young female who is the attention of his first crush, who turns out to be (or will be) the mother and grandmother to some well-known Vulcans.
Among the Next Generation stories, by far the highlight is the Jeff D. Jacques and Michelle A. Bottrall short story, Kristin's Conundrum, about a character found in a bathing suit during a loss of memory crisis on board the Enterprise-D (I can't recall if she actually appeared in the episode or was referred to off-screen. I also can't recall the episode title though I certainly remember the story). The rest of STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V is a mixed bag. The writing is almost always competent though a lot of the stories lack fair, and there are one or two bombs in the mix. Finally, it is interesting to note that only one story based on DEEP SPACE NINE appears in the collection (and something of a retread - though still interesting - story of the episode "Nor the Battle to the Strong"). One wonders if that is because there simply weren't any good DS9 stories submitted, or because the series writers were so thorough in their characterizations that it left little room for maneuver in penning fan fiction. The fact that it is the stories based on VOY (the weakest written Trek show to date) which stand head and shoulders above the rest in this collection suggests that the former may be true.
STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS V
Individual Short Story Ratings
STAR TREK: TOS
Disappearance on 21st Street by Mary Scott-Wiecek (GRAND PRIZE) - *** (average)
The Trouble with Borg Tribbles by William Leisner (THIRD PRIZE) - ** (mediocre)
Legal Action by Alan Lickiss - ***1/2 (above average)
Yeomen Figgs by Mark Murata - *** 1/2 (above average)
The Shoulders of Giants by Robert T. Jeschonek - * (don't bother)
STAR TREK: TNG
Bluff by Steven Scott Ripley (SECOND PRIZE) - *** (average)
The Peacemakers by Alan James Garbers - *** (average)
Efflorescence by Julie A. Hyzy - *** (average)
Kristin's Conundrum by Jeff D. Jacques and Michelle A. Bottrall - **** 1/2 (highly recommended)
The Monkey Puzzle Box by Kevin Killiany - ** (mediocre)
The Farewell Gift by Tonya D. Price - ** 1/2 stars (below average)
Dementia in D Minor by Mary Sweeney - **** (recommended)
STAR TREK: DS9
Fear, Itself by Robert J. Mendenhall - *** 1/2 (above average)
STAR TREK: VOY
Final Entry by Cynthia K. Deatherage - ***** (must read)
The Difficulties of Being Evil by Craig Gibb - *** (average)
Restoration by Penny A. Proctor - ***** (must read)
On the Rocks by TG Theodore - ***** (must read)
Witness by Diana Kornfeld - **** (recommended)
Fragment by Catherine E. Pike - ***** (must read)
Who Cries for Prometheus? - * (don't bother)
ENT
Remnant by James J. and Louisa M. Swann - ** 1/2 (below average)
A Girl For Every Star by John Takis - **** (recommended)
Hoshi's Gift by Kelle Vozka - **** (recommended)
TrekWeb's Rating:
