VAN: Storming Heaven by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Patrick O'Brien]

Now I wish I had not pre ordered the book on my kindle. I could have gone to B&N and picked the paperback up early.

[Hartzilla2007]

David Mack wrote:

---

That's not intended as a slight against James's fine story; I just don't want readers to feel as if they've missed an integral part of the saga if they haven't read it.

Yeah its more integral to the Mirror Universe books. Especially the extended version of The Sorrows of Empire.

[rfmcdpei]

David Mack wrote:

---

^ Not everyone. But don't give it away. Shhhhh....

If I can summarize, on multiple occasions during the Federation's investigation into the Shedai, the Federation accidentally unleashed the mental energies of the Cthulhoid Old Ones--real Old Ones, remembered in the Tholian collective consciousness, they who had uplifted the Tholians into consciousness so as to enslave them--onto the contemporary Tholians, on the final time accidentally inflicting a mental violation equivalent to agonizing rape on the entire species. (This while using the enslaved Shedai to annihilate a planet.)

The Tholians sent only a fifth of their fleet to destroy Vanguard and the Shedai contained within? Such moderation.

Honestly, especially given the multi-generational continuity of the Tholian collective consciousness, I'm not surprised that the Tholians are as strongly anti-Federation as they are. There's a very good case to be made that the Federation did many terrible things in the Taurus Reach, would have done very many more had things not broken, and that the Tholians' dispatch of an armada to destroy Vanguard and its captives was actually a good thing. I won't say that the Tholians were the good guys, but it seemed clear enough to me that if the Tholians hadn't assaulted the station sooner or later the Shedai would have gotten out with disastrous results.

(We thought the Borg invasion of 2381 was bad? The Shedai conquest of 2270 would have been so much worse.)

[David Mack]

^ Yeah, that about sums it up.

[T'Bonz]

rfmcdpei wrote:

---

Seriously, what's the BB code for spoiler discussions?

Well hell, dude, it says "SPOILERS" in the title, so one should assume that one will have things spoiled coming in here. I think spoiler code, while nice, is overkill given the warning in the title.

[Sxottlan]

Picked up my copy at the grocery store tonight!

[Mage]

Hey guys, how many pages is this one? Check out Amazon.com and it says 368, but accoriding to bol.com, it's 304??

[David Mack]

The story ends on p342, and then there are the usual 3-4 pages of back matter. So they're both wrong.

[Patrick O'Brien]

Just downloaded to my kindle. Cannot wait to dive in and then cast my vote

[Ronald Held]

Time to look for it at a B&N tomorrow.

[John Clark]

My copy has arrived so I'll probably be starting it tomorrow

[T'Bonz]

Argh! Damn Amazon. Not due to arrive 'til tomorrow.

[Turtletrekker]

Mine shipped today.

[Jarvisimo]

Kindled, currently drunk Quinn on cobblestones.

David, do you try to do specifically 60s decors, fashions and designs in your Vanguard-writing (like the beehives that lovely Italian lass had in the first book)? I am picturing some wonderfully brown, 60s brutalist pavements and prefabs in Star's Landing.

[David Mack]

I am picturing some wonderfully brown, 60s brutalist pavements and prefabs in Star's Landing.

More off-white than brown, but as for style, that sounds about right.