Star Trek: New Earth: Book 1: Wagon Train To The Stars

After saving Earth from the threat of V’Ger, James T. Kirk is called again to the final frontier. His new mission: to lead a valiant group of settlers to a distant world, to defend the struggling colony from alien threats, and to explore the diverse mysteries and dangers of a strange new Earth! Far from the Federation, a newly discovered M-class world has been eyed as a potential home by a group of hardy and determined colonists. StarFleet can spare only one starship to escort the would-be settlers on their perilous voyage, but that ship is none other than the legendary Starship Enterprise, commanded by the most well-known captain in the quadrant. Now Kirk finds himself responsible for the lives of 30,000 men, women, and children — a task that grows all the more difficult when the expedition is caught in the middle of an ancient feud between two dangerous alien races!

I wrote this for the Star Trek: Family magazine “engage”:

Released on June 1, 2000 by Pocket books, this 352 page book is the first of six novels in a much larger adventure of colonists heading off to a far flung planet that they believe is open for settling. The book is a sequel to The Motion Picture, with a key scene involving both the classic pajama style uniforms and the “Monster Maroons” that premiered in Star Trek II and begins with Kirk having returned to his Admiralty desk and being convinced to return once again to the bridge of his beloved Enterprise. This of course is an easy argument, as Kirk is naturally itching for the chance to get back to space and what better way to do it than with his crew of trusted senior officers we all know and love?

The key to this adventure is that there’s over thirty thousand colonists that are going to be making this journey with or without the direct support of Starfleet and begrudgingly accept Enterprise tagging along for protection of their fleet of massive people moving transports. The colonists had already hired their own protection in the form of some rather unsavory privateers that in theory are there for safety but in reality may be more of a problem than they’re worth. To add even more drama to the mix, there’s political intrigue from well known conmen that Kirk knows are up to no good, but can’t prove it until certain machinations are put into motion and the key question is if Kirk and his crew are able to put preventative measures in place in time to head off deadly catastrophes.

There’s times that this set up works well, particularly with the political and confidence peddlers, but at times the story can roam a bit too freely with the alien races and their alien thought patterns and language. There’s several sections of the book that do a fair bit of world building that can be confusing or off putting if you weren’t expecting to be thrown head first into a conflict between two unfamiliar space faring empires but if you pay attention to their first interactions (and who they interact with!) there’s a few satisfying payoffs by the end of the book.

This novel wraps up the story of the journey to the new planet in a refreshing way that highlights Kirk’s actual abilities in comparison to the legend that had been built up about him in universe and sets the stage for the next five novels as written by Dean Wesley Smith,L.A. Graf,Jerry Oltion, Kathy Oltion, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch with the final book being written again by Diane Carey.

Buy On Amazon!