I haven't read a Star Trek book in a long time. I recently picked up book 1 and 2 of the Vanguard series. I was really impressed with the first one. It felt like a 2 hour premiere for a new Star Trek series. It felt a little like Deep Space 9 set in the TOS era. The stations's characters are fleshed out really well. I am about a third of the way through the second book Summon the Thunder. I just finished the section of the book where the Endeavor was attacked and they had to leave the Captain behind. Wow what a well written action sequence. It is a great read so far and it expands the TOS universe with new ships, characters and I can see where they are setting up future conflicts that play out later on the series. I noticed some call outs and allusions to Where No Man, Operation Annihilate, Errand of Mercy, Doomsday Machine. -Chris
I'm reading the series for the first time too, and it sounds like you're just a bit behind me. My interest was piqued after reading the Vanguard sections of the MU books.
MU books? I thought it was kind of cool how they introduced the uniform changes between the pilot and the series, they made it a small story point in setting up the environment. -Chris
Mirror Universe. The mirror version of Vanguard is seen in "The Black Flag" by James Swallow in the Shards and Shadows anthology and elaborated on in the expanded version of The Sorrows of Empire by David Mack.
Christopher said everything I might have said about the MU books. Yeah, I'm definitely enjoying the callbacks to the events of TOS. It's also been a long time since I read anything set so early in the TOS timeline; I'm enjoying revisiting the "early" 23rd century.
I'm not sure whether I'm satisfied or dissatisfied that there were only 7 Vanguard novels. On one hand they avoided getting old. On the other hand covering only roughly 3 years in-story in 7 books seems like missed opportunities.
I heard about the Seekers series, that sounds like it should be interesting. At least it will give me time to catch up on the 5 other Vanguard books before their release. -Chris
IMO the Vanguard series of books is the best Trek we've gotten in-print or on-screen in the last decade. Looking forward to Seekers.
Don't forget Declassified, which was in no way optional or expendable. Vanguard was an 8-book series; the only optional or peripheral tales were the two bracketing e-books and the Mirror Universe story.
Good point about Declassified I suppose. AndI too hope that Seekers will be a worthy follow-up series.
I finished Storming Heaven yesterday, and all I have to say is wow! A fitting and epic end to one of the most engaging and complex Star Trek series I've ever read. I had one question that someone here might be able to answer: Spoiler: Question about Goodbyes in Storming Heaven After sending Quinn away, T'Prynn says that they might one day be able to forgive her, but there was only one person who knows she's to blame for their hardships that would never likely forgive her. Who is she referring to?
Thanks — glad you enjoyed the saga, and that you enjoyed the finale. To answer your question, read the very next sentence that follows the one you asked about: T'Prynn is referring to herself. The whole point of her story is learning that atonement is not a destination, not a prize to be won, but a journey that never ends, a process that must become its own purpose.
Just wanna know more about Seekers given it debuts in a couple of months But then - we haven't had a really decent marketing campaign (or indeed an 'original' new series debuting [discounting the Voyager and TNG relaunches] ) since Titan and Vanguard, and they were both Spring/Summer 2005. That's actually a bit mindblowing that Titan and Vanguard have been running for almost ten years.
Thanks so much for answering my question David. I was thinking somewhat along those lines, but thought she might be referring to Anna for giving her her trust but being betrayed in the end, and not being able redeem herself to Anna due to her death - the moment that set her over the edge and was really the turning point in T'Prynn's arc. That didn't seem to make direct sense though, as the sentence was written to imply that the person was still alive.
Yeah, I don't think the later Vanguard books quite match the first 3 for sheer brilliance, but, expecting that level to be sustained is probably demanding too much. It's one of the strongest little series I've read.
THe first three were fantastic...but the rest, IMO, kept things up and were also fantastic in their own rights. Wonderful series all in all. I can't wait to read the beginning of Star Trek: Seekers this summer
As Dayton and I have noted before, expect Star Trek: Seekers to have a different tone and style than that of Star Trek Vanguard. The new series is about a return to exploration, and it's much less concerned with notions such as national security, conspiracy, etc. It's more about adventure than about politics. So while it is a sequel series, in that it features ships and characters who were prominent in Vanguard, it will be very much its own animal.
That is exactly how I was pimping it out to a friend on twitter earlier when discussing the Trek novels.
Which is fantastic. I was never expecting a tonal continuation of Vanguard. It'll be nice to see some of our favorite lit-only characters (and Terrell) in a new kind of story. Exporation and world building are just as exciting as AQ/BQ politics IMO.