I just finished reading Harbinger, Distant Early Warning, and Summon the Thunder. Really enjoying the series so far and thanks to everyone for the earlier comments. Reading Sorrows of Empire with the mirror-Vanguard definitely gave me an interesting entry point to the series, but at the same time reading that book also got me back into the ST books in general. In catching up I think I bought 35+ books, including every single ST book written by David Mack, so hopefully he and others see a spike in their royalty checks this month! And also congratulations to former fellow AOL Star Trek denizen Netrekker/Dayton Ward for hitting it big in the book world.
It was excellent to see how well developed and executed the Vanguard concept was. The book line has unfortunately very uneven in this regard. New Earth/Challenger, the Gateways hardcover, and the Voyager relaunch/Janeway in Before Dishonor made me want to kick the tires before I buy anything new. But luckily Vanguard is up there with the initial DS9 relaunch, SCE, Section 31, and The Lost Era.
Some spoilers for the first two books follow...
The two things I didn't like:
-- The "embassies" on Starbase 47. This is a major pet peeve of mine. Often TV shows depict the "Colombian Embassy in Miami" (Burn Notice) or the embassy of a fictional country in Los Angeles (Chuck). With rare exceptions (like Tel Aviv vs Jerusalem), only the capital city of a country will have an embassy. The rest are all consulates or missions. The US has ambassadors and missions to the UN, NATO, EU, UNESCO, Organization to American States, etc. 24 and The X-Files were some of the few works of fiction on TV to get this right. Starbase 47 in not a sovereign state. The closest real world analog would be an international organization. So there should be diplomatic missions there, not embassies (or consulates since they have diplomatic personnel of ambassadorial rank). I did my summer college internship with the US Mission to the European Union and am used to having to explain the differences in embassies/consulates/missions to people, and trust me real world diplomats really get hung up on issues like this. The DS9 relaunch has Quark's Bar serving as the Ferengi Embassy to Bajor. This one actually works since Quark is the Ambassador to Bajor. Many developing countries can't afford to have both an embassy in Washington DC and a mission to the UN in New York, so sometimes you can have a de facto embassy outside of a capital region. And Jerusalem is the functioning capital of Israel, while Tel Aviv has the embassies and Jerusalem the consulates. I basically majored in diplomacy in grad school so apologies if this comes across as a rant. I know others point out science or military issues in Star Trek too so I hope this can be taken as constructive criticism. But it is something that knocked me out of the books every time an "embassy" came up.
-- The first attack on Erilon that killed Captain Zhao in Summon the Thunder... It's mentioned that several other Endeavor personnel and an SCE team were killed on the surface as well. But we're never told how many people actually died (or if anyone aboard the Endeavor was killed too). Was it 10? 50? I kept hoping Summon the Thunder would give a body count but it never came up. It was very hard to picture the scale of what had happened without that added piece of information.
Now everything else I did like:
-- Having many of the characters be unlikable. Bold choice that works wonders.
-- USS Bombay character development considering they were marked for death. I wish I'd known Amanda Tapping was supposed to "play" the captain while I was reading Harbinger.
-- How the TOS characters were integrated into the story. They find out about the situation in the Taurus Reach as we do. And Kirk provides a great contrast to Reyes' character.
-- Tongue and cheek references to the TOS mini-skirts...
-- Pennington really adds scale and contrast to the storyline. Not only do Reyes et al have to keep secrets from the Tholians and Klingons, but their own people.
-- Locating Vanguard in a new region of space but connecting it with the rest of the franchise. New Earth/Challenger was an interesting concept about a colony on the frontier, but once the Enterprise left Belle Terre there was nothing Star Trek about it, just a futuristic SF work by Diane Carey with her usual nautical and conservative libertarian touches.
-- Vanguard is about secrets. But instead of creating suspense by not divulging to the reader what those secrets actually are a la Lost, it let's you in on the secrets each character keeps from the others. This is very effective in creating character drama, especially with Desai and Reyes.
-- Xiang. Vanguard provides more a military-side view of Starfleet than some other series and authors, especially showing the contrast between officers and enlisted people (David Mack also has a very military depiction of Ezri and the Aventine in Destiny which I personally disliked, but he is more that entitled to his depiction and there is certainly nothing to contradict it in what has already been established). But Xiang also provides a great contrast with Starfleet military-types. Granted this independence did get Captain Zhao killed on Erilon, but then again Zhao could have been more flexible and would have survived...
-- Showing the Klingon's actually conquer an innocent pre-warp species. Many times both episodes and books have shied away from the conquering side of the Klingons and instead just focus on their internal honor. The Klingons even in the 24th century probably have more blood (and mass genocides) on their hands than the Romulans or Cardassians considering their much larger territory. Granted the Klingons were there big bads in TOS, but at least here they escapped historical revisionism.
-- Jetanien's line about being the last person to arrive at a meeting you've called. Will remember that one in real life...
-- Showing the Romulans without going all Rihansu on us. I wish the Enterprise relaunch would have done the same. Some things just don't need to be retconned in.
Well now on to my $15 but like new copy of Reap the Whirlwind...
It was excellent to see how well developed and executed the Vanguard concept was. The book line has unfortunately very uneven in this regard. New Earth/Challenger, the Gateways hardcover, and the Voyager relaunch/Janeway in Before Dishonor made me want to kick the tires before I buy anything new. But luckily Vanguard is up there with the initial DS9 relaunch, SCE, Section 31, and The Lost Era.
Some spoilers for the first two books follow...
The two things I didn't like:
-- The "embassies" on Starbase 47. This is a major pet peeve of mine. Often TV shows depict the "Colombian Embassy in Miami" (Burn Notice) or the embassy of a fictional country in Los Angeles (Chuck). With rare exceptions (like Tel Aviv vs Jerusalem), only the capital city of a country will have an embassy. The rest are all consulates or missions. The US has ambassadors and missions to the UN, NATO, EU, UNESCO, Organization to American States, etc. 24 and The X-Files were some of the few works of fiction on TV to get this right. Starbase 47 in not a sovereign state. The closest real world analog would be an international organization. So there should be diplomatic missions there, not embassies (or consulates since they have diplomatic personnel of ambassadorial rank). I did my summer college internship with the US Mission to the European Union and am used to having to explain the differences in embassies/consulates/missions to people, and trust me real world diplomats really get hung up on issues like this. The DS9 relaunch has Quark's Bar serving as the Ferengi Embassy to Bajor. This one actually works since Quark is the Ambassador to Bajor. Many developing countries can't afford to have both an embassy in Washington DC and a mission to the UN in New York, so sometimes you can have a de facto embassy outside of a capital region. And Jerusalem is the functioning capital of Israel, while Tel Aviv has the embassies and Jerusalem the consulates. I basically majored in diplomacy in grad school so apologies if this comes across as a rant. I know others point out science or military issues in Star Trek too so I hope this can be taken as constructive criticism. But it is something that knocked me out of the books every time an "embassy" came up.
-- The first attack on Erilon that killed Captain Zhao in Summon the Thunder... It's mentioned that several other Endeavor personnel and an SCE team were killed on the surface as well. But we're never told how many people actually died (or if anyone aboard the Endeavor was killed too). Was it 10? 50? I kept hoping Summon the Thunder would give a body count but it never came up. It was very hard to picture the scale of what had happened without that added piece of information.
Now everything else I did like:
-- Having many of the characters be unlikable. Bold choice that works wonders.
-- USS Bombay character development considering they were marked for death. I wish I'd known Amanda Tapping was supposed to "play" the captain while I was reading Harbinger.
-- How the TOS characters were integrated into the story. They find out about the situation in the Taurus Reach as we do. And Kirk provides a great contrast to Reyes' character.
-- Tongue and cheek references to the TOS mini-skirts...
-- Pennington really adds scale and contrast to the storyline. Not only do Reyes et al have to keep secrets from the Tholians and Klingons, but their own people.
-- Locating Vanguard in a new region of space but connecting it with the rest of the franchise. New Earth/Challenger was an interesting concept about a colony on the frontier, but once the Enterprise left Belle Terre there was nothing Star Trek about it, just a futuristic SF work by Diane Carey with her usual nautical and conservative libertarian touches.
-- Vanguard is about secrets. But instead of creating suspense by not divulging to the reader what those secrets actually are a la Lost, it let's you in on the secrets each character keeps from the others. This is very effective in creating character drama, especially with Desai and Reyes.
-- Xiang. Vanguard provides more a military-side view of Starfleet than some other series and authors, especially showing the contrast between officers and enlisted people (David Mack also has a very military depiction of Ezri and the Aventine in Destiny which I personally disliked, but he is more that entitled to his depiction and there is certainly nothing to contradict it in what has already been established). But Xiang also provides a great contrast with Starfleet military-types. Granted this independence did get Captain Zhao killed on Erilon, but then again Zhao could have been more flexible and would have survived...
-- Showing the Klingon's actually conquer an innocent pre-warp species. Many times both episodes and books have shied away from the conquering side of the Klingons and instead just focus on their internal honor. The Klingons even in the 24th century probably have more blood (and mass genocides) on their hands than the Romulans or Cardassians considering their much larger territory. Granted the Klingons were there big bads in TOS, but at least here they escapped historical revisionism.
-- Jetanien's line about being the last person to arrive at a meeting you've called. Will remember that one in real life...
-- Showing the Romulans without going all Rihansu on us. I wish the Enterprise relaunch would have done the same. Some things just don't need to be retconned in.
Well now on to my $15 but like new copy of Reap the Whirlwind...
I'm glad I wasn't reading that part of the book in a public setting. Hilarious, and it kept getting more and more over the top. Blowing up a planet is one thing, but comedy is really difficult to pull off well and it works here. PAD/New Frontier would have stopped with the sewage backup, but the effects and cleanup take it to the next level...
