“The sheer unpredictability of the insane, demented galaxy”: Peter David’s New Frontier Novels

The first Star Trek series created directly for print rather than for the screen, Peter David’s Star Trek: New Frontier represents an ambitious publishing experiment and a successful proof-of-concept which inspired the 21st century expansion of the Star Trek tie-in universe via original series such as Starfleet Corp of Engineers, Titan, IKS Gorkon, Vanguard, Seekers, and so on. The popular New Frontier saga – created in 1997 by David and Pocket Books editor John Ordover – now stretches across almost twenty novels, plus a healthy assortment of comics, short stories, and ebook releases. The series is defined by David’s trademark combination of widescreen space opera action (of a type beyond TV budgets), irreverence, melodrama, and deep canon knowledge of the Star Trek franchise. Freed from the formal constraints of existing tie-in properties, New Frontier further allowed for an emphasis on long-running character development, with David’s characters growing and changing (often in fundamental fashion) over the course of the series in ways which foreshadow the later seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and, indeed, the more recent Star Trek: Discovery.

This chapter examines how David uses New Frontier as an opportunity to reflect upon the artistic procedures and devices of the Star Trek franchise, as well to self-reflectively comment on the plot dynamics of Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation in particular. He accomplishes this though inter- and meta-textual reference to franchise history and lore (such as his incorporating the alien Greek Gods of The Original Series, his literalizing of Gene Roddenberry’s nickname ‘The Great Bird of the Galaxy’, or extended jokes about the variety of characters portrayed by Majel Barrett). Further opportunity for comment on the limitations of episodic television is provided by David’s revival of popular guest characters from The Next Generation (including Elisabeth Shelby, Dr. Selar, Robin Lefler and Edward Jellico). In addition, David contributes a cast of original protagonists which celebrate the franchise’s best traditions of diversity and inclusion, as well as offering deconstructions of fandom traditions and stereotypes. These include the hermaphrodite Burgoyne 172, the rock-like Zak Kebron (reminiscent of The Thing from The Fantastic Four), and series lead Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, consciously depicted by David as a ‘Mary Sue’ figure.

The chapter presents New Frontier as an essential element of the Star Trek expanded universe, at once a revitalizing exercise in narrative invention and a precursor to later developments in the production and consumption of the franchise’s tie-in fiction