1998-2000 Star Trek shorts -Amazing Stories

[jefferiestubes8]

I came across this today.

Between 1998 and 2000, Amazing Stories published a series of short stories based upon the Star Trek franchise. In 2002, these stories were reissued by Pocket Books in the collection Star Trek: The Amazing Stories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Stories

From 1998 to 2000, Amazing Stories, the world's oldest science fiction magazine, presented a series of original Star Trek stories written by a number of bestselling authors. Now these little-seen Star Trek adventures have been collected together for the first time, along with brand-new tales written expressly for this volume!

This edition: eBook, 160 pages
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Amazing-Stories/John-J-Ordover/Star-Trek/9780743449168

What is the general opinion of these shorts from the Trek lit community? Is the eBook worth it?

 

[BillJ]

Not at that price.

The stories were only set within the Next Gen and Voyager universes if I remember correctly.

 

[Greg Cox]

Yep. There were four TNG stories and three VOYAGER stories. (I wrote one of the Next Gen stories.)

 

[shanejayell]

It's not bad. SLIM little book, tho, so $10 might be a bit much.

 

[Steve Roby]

As I recall, it's not bad. But it was disappointing in one respect. Before it was published, IIRC, John Ordover said the book would have some new stories, and the same claim was actually on the book cover: "From 1998 to 2000, Amazing Stories, the world's oldest science fiction magazine, presented a series of original Star Trek stories written by a number of bestselling authors. Now these little-seen Star Trek adventures have been collected together for the first time, along with brand new tales written expressly for this volume!"

But there were no new stories. And considering I was one of the nine or ten people who actually bought all those issues of Amazing...

 

[Therin of Andor]

It's not bad. SLIM little book, tho, so $10 might be a bit much.

$1.40 each is "too much" for Star Trek stories? Which many fans had a very hard time tracking down as individual issues of "Amazing Stories"?

Here is Australia, I warned a SF specialist bookshop that the first new, revamped "Amazing Stories" mag was coming (with the Crispin story) included a licensed ST story not to appear in print any other way, and preordered an issue. I thought I'd been very clever and proactive, even though it was a very expensive way to collect ST fiction. I hoped I'd enjoy plenty of other things in each mag, but I must admit, I think I did only read the ST stories. When I finally got them.

The local Aussie distributor missed getting in the first issue ("Sold out!", they claimed), but found me lots of copies of the new issue #2 (which had the "Babylon 5" story in it). Then they missed getting the next issue ("Star Trek"), but managed to get the next one after that, which of course was... another "Babylon 5" story. And so on. It drove me crazy, and the shop staff was a bit cranky with me for always refusing to buy the expensive, glossy magazines they'd gotten in specially, on my tip off.

A local gaming store ended up being far more reliable than the well-meaning SF bookstore, but I had to keep checking their magazine racks every week. They would "hold" issues for anyone, and the well-fondled mags tended to sit around turning into limp rags. I think the first I knew of the Seven of Nine cover issue was seeing the cardboard advertising slick (for sale in a little junk box) in a gaming store. I found one issue while interstate at a ST convention (again in a gaming store) and a US penpal found me another issue (the "Seven" issue that I had only as a cover slick) that I was still missing.

I was glad to have them all in one volume, but very disappointed John Ordover's cover blurb for the trade paperback omnibus ended up being the only record of a missed opportunity to make the book a more-compelling item.

 

[BillJ]

It's not bad. SLIM little book, tho, so $10 might be a bit much.

$1.40 each is "too much" for Star Trek stories many fans had a very hard time tracking down as individual issues of "Amazing Stories"?

Yes. Ten dollars for a 160 page e-book, it feels like gouging to me.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

As I recall, it's not bad. But it was disappointing in one respect. Before it was published, IIRC, John Ordover said the book would have some new stories, and the same claim was actually on the book cover: "From 1998 to 2000, Amazing Stories, the world's oldest science fiction magazine, presented a series of original Star Trek stories written by a number of bestselling authors. Now these little-seen Star Trek adventures have been collected together for the first time, along with brand new tales written expressly for this volume!"

To further this, I remember that Ordover's explanation after the fact was that he was under the impression that the unpublished stories that Amazing had commissioned had been written and approved by Paramount. Of the additional stories, there were only proposals of two of them, and the third, Susan Shwartz and Josepha Sherman's "Harry and the Pirates," had been written but not submitted to Paramount for approvals. Having the stories finished and approved would have broken the collection's budget.

I'm not sure why running a finished story through Licensing for approvals would have broken the budget. I can understand the two unfinished stories; it's likely that Amazing hadn't paid them before they went belly-up, and J.J. probably wasn't expecting to have to pay anything more than a reprint fee on the stories.

 

[Greg Cox]

If the story hadn't been approved, then AMAZING would not have paid for it yet. I guess Pocket didn't want to pay for three new stories.