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Books Wagon Train to the Stars, Belle Terre, Rough Trails, The Flaming Arrow: St, Challenger | ||
Star Trek: New Earth is a series of Star Trek novels published by Pocket Books in the United States, as part of Pocket’s Star Trek: The Original Series line. Based on the titular TV series created by Gene Roddenberry, New Earth was created by Pocket editor John J. Ordover and writer Diane Carey, and debuted on June 1, 2000, with the publication of the first two installments, Wagon Train to the Stars and Belle Terre. (“Wagon Train to the Stars” was a phrase with which Roddenberry described Star Trek when he pitched the show to network executives in the 1960s, who were fixated on the success of TV westerns.) The other four novels in the series followed in July and August of that year.
The series depicts the events of a second five-year mission taking place between the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Some major events shown are the switch to the newer Starfleet uniform design of the later movie, and James T. Kirk's reluctance to accept a position at the admiralty rather than as a starship captain.
The sixth and final New Earth book was subtitled Challenger, and served as a springboard for a subsequent spin-off series, Star Trek: Challenger.
In Voyages of Imagination, Diane Carey remarks on how her editor John J. Ordover wanted to use the New Earth series while Peter David was busy with Star Trek: New Frontier: "New captain, new ship, new crew, and new situation, bringing Star Trek back to the original concept of 'being out there' with limited contact, essentially in a wild west town and having to fake it, hacking our way to civilization the hard way. Greg and I developed the situation for New Earth, then wrote the bracketing support books, with other authors writing the middle books of the series."