Rating: 
Summary: Awesome 2nd place story by Thatcher, about the Enterprise
Review: hatcher's 2nd place award for this story is impressive, given the thousands of submissions the contest received. As the story chosen as second best, it is no surprise that "Of Cabbages as Kings" is an impressive, original, well-crafted story. Right from the start it is clear that this is an unusual story: it is told entirely from the perspective of the Enterprise - the ship itself, or, specifically, the ship's computer. As the ship's "thoughts" cycle rapidly, at billions of calculations a second, the ship and readers soon realize that the crew has suddenly and unexpectantly vanished. The entire story, in fact, is devoid of any characters other than the Enterprise (unless one counts a holodeck simulation of Captain Picard, which has a relatively brief but important role). This is particularly challenging subject matter because the Enterprise is not sentient, and can merely run the routines programmed into it. This actually turns out to be quite interesting, as Thatcher addresses a legitimate question: Just what is a Starfleet ship programmed to do if it has no crew? The answers are very plausible and should appeal especially to logicians and computer programmers. But this story becomes much more than simply a tale of a failsafe algorithm, because in order to extricate itself from its situation, the Enterprise must (as challenged by the Picard simulation) achieve some semblance of sentience. It must go beyond its orignal programming. Certainly similar themes have been addressed before, especially with Data and Voyager's holodoc. This tale of the Enterprise, however, adds new dimensions to these concepts, while providing a detailed but very readable look deep into the "mind" of a starship, and addressing the interesting question about why Starfleet doesn't design its ships with self-awareness in the first place.
Rating: 
Summary: buy this book now!
Review: Honestly, this is the BEST Trek book I've ever read, by a long shot. Trek was invented for the short format of TV, so it stands to reason that its admittedly simplistic characters and situations work better in a short prose format than in novel-length stories. Don't be put off by the fact that the writers are "amateurs" - they're better than the pros in many cases, particularly the VOY writers. Reading this book convinced me that the VOY characters aren't as bad as I used to think, and can be quite entertaining in the hands of inventive writers. If only the TV show were this good...
Rating:
Summary: Fans Put Some Modern Writers To Shame
Review: I was initially dubious about the concept of getting fans to write Star Trek stories for an anthology as over recent years the quality of Star Trek both on television, and in print, has been quite erratic. However this first volume of stories proves that there are a number of fans out there with great ideas and writing skills, and I agree with some reviewers who claim that this book should be a wake up call to so-called "professional" writers, whose modern style doesn't sit well with older fans like myself. Star Trek is many things to many people, which this collection reflects, but it should NEVER be just a soap opera in Starfleet uniforms, which is often the modern trend. A thoroughly enjoyable collection, and a worthwhile endeavour.
Rating:
Summary: Great stuff from the fans!
Review: I'm probably not what you would call a hard core Trekkie, which is to say that I enjoy Trek, I read some of the books and I've seen the movies, but I'm not the leading expert on the intricate details of the series' and such. I guess what I'm getting at here is that I find Trek highly entertaining, just in a casual fan way. That out of the way, I enjoyed the heck out of these fan stories. I'm more of a fan of the first two Trek series' and didn't really get into Deep Space Nine, and I've maybe seen one episode of Voyager, but I found the stories for all four series' to be highly entertaining. The Voyager stories made me actually want to watch the show. Not just entertaining are these stories, but they are creative and well written. I hope that each of these writers continues on writing, as I found each and every story presented here to be very good and interesting. One would like to see these storylines in some of the shows. I really can't say enough good things about this book, so I'll just stop it here saying that this was a really good idea. To each and every author published in this book: Kudos! Great job all around and I hope to see your names again. And all you fans out there who're thinking about it, bring on some more! I'm definately checking out the later installments.
Rating:
Summary: The Magic of the Skies!!
Review: If this is really an amateur production, many of the so-called "professionals" had better watch out. The prose style of so many - no, all - of these stories is simply much more assured and compelling than a lot of the novels that appear month after month. The story "I, Voyager", for example, my favourite, is sheer poetry and breathtakingly beautiful. But that's just one gem among the many and to single it out is not to say that the rest are by any means substandard. This is a great collection with some words of wisdom at the end - that there really is more to life than Star Trek!
Rating:
Summary: Unique and Entertaining Stories
Review: If you enjoy short fiction and you're a Star Trek fan you will really enjoy this anthology. This volume can be picked up again and again; opened at random; and enjoyed.
Rating:
Summary: A set of really fun Star Trek stories from real afficianados
Review: It's obvious that this book is a labor of love. Fans of the series will devour this stuff - the stories range from poignant to hysterically funny. I hope to see more of this kind of book in the future - Star Trek lends itself well to the short-story format.
Rating:
Summary: Trek-Light makes for good quicky reads
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Trek-Light makes for good quicky reads
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds V
Review: 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.
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