I think I am a little afraid of spending time and money on something that in the end would amount to little more than glorified fanfiction with all the accompanying tropes. If I want that I'll just go read 'real' fanfiction.
Well, perhaps the biggest misunderstanding of SNW is the idea that it was a "fanfiction anthology." Rather, the whole point of it was that it was a chance for new writers to earn their first (or second or third)
professional credit. While there's surely plenty of good fanfiction in the world, there really isn't any quality control, since anyone can publish anything. The stories in SNW were submitted to professional editors and held to professional standards, and had to outcompete hundreds of other stories to be judged worthy of inclusion. On the other hand, since they were officially licensed Trek fiction, they had to stay within the basic parameters of the official Trek universe, and so they weren't as deconstructive, transgressive, or transformative as fanfiction is often able to be (although there were some rather ambitious experiments here and there, enough that the anthologies actually started adding a "Speculations" section in later volumes). So it would be a mistake to equate the stories with fanfiction.
Like I said, there are some real gems in SNW. But as with any anthology, you're probably going to like some stories much more than others. Heck, the same goes for the TV shows. For every "The Inner Light" or "The Visitor," there are a bunch of middle-of-the-road episodes and the occasional dud. That doesn't mean the shows aren't worth watching, though.
