Re: Vanguard: Storming Heaven by David Mack Review Thread (Spoilers!)
Finished the series this past week- the Vanguard series remains the only new Trek lit I've read in well over a decade, and I'm glad I took the journey. The TOS era has been and always shall be my favorite era, and the writing team brought it to life.
It was funny, but even some of the descriptions of equipment and lighting and such brought to mind TOS production values, which made me wonder if the writers were shooting for that or not, but it happened in my mind even so.
Loved the tight timeline scripting- the way events were interwoven with the Enterprise five year mission and the mentions (and sometimes ripples) of TOS series missions affecting events in the Reach.
Although I laugh like hell when I read them, I thought there were just a couple too many 'Zett's dead, baby' little moments. Very cleverly done but they jerk me out of the milieu. Hard to resist for a witty writer, though.
Very good stuff overall, and the only thing that killed me at the end was the loss of the station itself. Starbase 47 had a lot more stories and adventures in it, I felt, but it did sort of give a sense of finality to the series.
My new hierarchy of top Trek lit is as follows:
1. The Final Reflection
2. Federation
3. The Vanguard Series
And nobody should be insulted by making #3 on that list (actually filling out the top ten, if you want to count it that way). I started reading Trek books back in the late 70's and didn't really stop until the mid-90's.
Though it does prevent me from forgetting a release date. Don't publishers track pre order sales? Maybe if demand is strong they will force Dave to write more
