Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | 1998 | Kevin G. Summers | N/A |
| 2 | Strange New Worlds III | 2001 | Kevin G. Summers | Buy |
| 3 | Strange New Worlds VIII | 2005 | Kevin G. Summers | Buy |
| 4 | Strange New Worlds IV | 2001 | Kevin G. Summers | Buy |
| 5 | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VIII | 2005 | Kevin G. Summers | Buy |
| 6 | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds V | 2002 | Kevin G. Summers | N/A |
| 7 | Strange New Worlds 2016 | 2016 | Kevin G. Summers | Buy |
| 8 | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds VII | 2004 | Kevin G. Summers | N/A |
| 9 | Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 8 | 2005 | Kevin G. Summers | N/A |
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds ran as an annual anthology from 1998 through 2007, published by Pocket Books under license from Paramount. Each volume collected short stories chosen from a writing contest open to fans and amateur writers, covering characters from the Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and, from Volume 5 onward, Enterprise.
Kevin G. Summers entered the contest and had his story “Isolation Ward 4” selected for Strange New Worlds IV in 2001. The story, set during the Deep Space Nine episode “Shadows and Symbols,” follows a racist doctor in a mental institution who reads the stories of Benny Russell and changes because of them. It won Third Prize and appeared on the Nebula Awards preliminary ballot. Summers went on to appear in additional volumes of the series.
The anthology represents a rare case of an official publisher running an open fiction contest at scale, and the quality of the work varied across its ten volumes. The stories Summers contributed sit among the better-regarded entries, and the contest itself helped launch the careers of several writers who went on to publish professionally.