Wagon Train to the Stars (Star Trek New Earth #1)

Author: Diane Carey
First Published: 1999
File size/Pages: 1225KB / 265pp
Ebook Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

Ebook Date: July 2012

Continuing my 2021 Challenge, the next book is the first in the Star Trek miniseries New Earth. Written by Diane Carey and published in 1999, this series deals with the exodus of humans bent on settling a new colony far from Federation and Starfleet control, in the star system known as Occult.

The New Earth series was devised to be solely concerned with The Original Series (TOS) crew of the Enterprise, unlike other miniseries that had gone before which flitted across the various time periods of the Trek universe. John Ordover, editor of the licensed novels between 1992 and 2003, devised the concept from his own reaction to the television series, Voyager. He was dissatisfied with the lack of Voyager's crew having any 'turf' to defend other than their own ship. He wondered what kind of stories could come out of a colony being settled far outside the common galaxy or from Earth's influence, yet having a Starfleet crew and ship assigned to protect that settlement and also expand the Federation's reach from that new home base. There is a widely believed story that Gene Rodenberry, creator of Star Trek, when touting the idea of the new series described it as "Wagon Train to the Stars". This was Pocket Books chance to carry out that theme in fiction format.

Diane Carey is an American author born in 1954. She began her career writing romance novels under the pen name of Lydia Gregory. Now best known for her works in the Star Trek universes, she wrote two of the inaugral books in the Trek lines, Broken Bow for Star Trek: Enteprise, and Ghost Ship for Star Trek The Next Generation. By 1999 she had many Trek books already under her wing and went on to author (or co-author) three of the six New Earth installments.

My New Year Challenge

As 2020 comes to end I find myself thinking about the books I've read over the last twelve months and the books I'd like to read next year. There are so many good books I would love to be able to experience. But I always end up telling myself - the best thing to do is simply choose the ones you know you will have a more than better chance of liking. Life's too short to plough diligently through something you hate (although I've broken that personal rule a few times to be completely honest).

Therefore, in 2021, I've set myself a New Year's Challenge. Over the course of the year I will be reading a series of books across four well-known genre 'universes'. But to ensure I have a pretty good chance of getting through them all, I have picked from series that I know I'm going to like - at least from personal experience in the past that is. As you clearly can see from this post's main picture I have selected from Star Wars, Star Trek, James Bond and Musashi.

All of the books are currently available in eBook format. I haven't read any of them before but they have been on my radar for a while. I tried to keep the books within the 20th Century, but had to make a few exceptions. I don't want the challenge to disrupt my blogging completely so I am restricting the challenge to a total of 19 books. Seeing as I get through roughly 50 per year, I believe this will still allow me the time to dip in and out of the challenge and still keep Digital Bibliophilia a location for a varied review site of genre fiction.

Star Trek - Log One

Author: Alan Dean Foster

First Published: 1974

Pages: 184pp
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

It wasn't too long ago that I reviewed another book by Alan Dean Foster. Splinter of the Mind's Eye was his story based upon the intent of George Lucas to produce a lower budget sequel to Star Wars if it didn't do well in theatres. Well we know how that panned out, so Foster's Star Wars sequel remains a quirky novel in the expanded universe for fans of the franchise.

Before Lucas approached him, Foster also took on what was to become another science fiction cinematic and televisual franchise. Star Trek: The Original Series had been cancelled fours years previously (in 1969) but was proving immensely popular via syndication. This resulted in the shows creator, Gene Roddenberry, to decide to continue the series in an animated form. To the delight of fans, much of the original cast returned to provide voice-overs for their original characters. Show writers David Gerrold and D. C. Fontana characterised The Animated Series as a fourth season of The Original Series.

Star Trek: The Animated Series, aired as "Star Trek" and as "The Animated Adventures of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek" from 1973 to 1974 consisting of 22 episodes over two seasons. Set in the 23rd century, with Earth as part of a United Federation of Planets, it followed the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Enterprise as it explored the galaxy.

The New Cover Gallery

My favourite Achilleos cover

I have always been a collector of paperback books. When I was very young the first books I started to collect were the Doctor Who adaptations published by Target. With their brilliant cover artwork by Chris Achille
os, and written mainly by people involved in the television series itself, authors like Ian Marter, Robert Holmes, David Whittaker and Terrance Dicks, who contributed massively to the series - these books started to take up precious space in the bedroom at home I shared with my brother.

As my tastes broadened I started to pick up others books, most of which have proved the test of time from the seventies and eighties, like Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes and Sci-Fi books by Asimov, Clarke and Phillip K Dick. The various covers would always have an attraction. The way collections would either be styled or numbered meant you could admire them even after reading, and ordering them on my few shelves (scratch-built by my father) was always a great past-time.

Over the years my tastes have changed - but I have never abandoned my love for a good-looking paperback cover. I'm still attracted by bright designs, great artistry and a consistent format for a seres of books by the same author. I have books that I am not necessarily eager to read, but love the design; a good example would be the Mary Russell / Sherlock Holmes books by Laurie R King, published by Alison and Busby here in the UK - great covers - whenever I see one I don't own I just have to have it.

Alas, the amount of room, and the cost of owning every book that you would love have are incompatible. Well it is for me. I'm sure it is for many of you. So, what can I do about it? Well, I can collect those great covers digitally. I am doing this with Pinterest. I have added a page to the Digital Bibliophilia blog, it is called the Cover Gallery and can be viewed by using the menu link at the top of the blog. It is a direct representation of the 'latest saves' from the official Digital Bibliophila Pinterest account I have created, so that if you want to follow my growing collection you can.

Please feel free to browse as much as you want - I'd love to grow the collection as much as possible, and hope to include many different genres into it over time. I will add 'collections' (known as Boards on Pinterest) to arrange the covers into series as I go along.

I hope you enjoy this new part of the blog.