Re: Summon the Thunder (Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Just finished "Summon the Thunder" today, and I've got to say I really enjoyed it.
At first I thought there were a few too many points of view - Tholians, Klingons, Romulans, Vanguard, Endeavour, Quinn/Pennington and Shedai - but thinking about it I see that where Harbinger was more focused on introducing the characters, StT was more about introducing the Taurus Reach, the politics and expanding on the Shedai and the meta-genome. So, I don't begrudge all the points-of-view too much.
I didn't expect the Romulans to show up and it was a little off-putting, but I did like the way it foreshadowed "Balance of Terror".
The first appearance of the Sentinels was particularly creepy and (I thought) had a Forbidden Planet type vibe, whereas I missed the monster attempting to breach the forcefield reference.
I'm glad that the revelation that Sandesjo is also working for T'Prynn was revealed here instead of in Harbinger. To reveal that T'Prynn did indeed have everyone under her thumb in Harbinger would have been very off-putting. I still wish that Sandesjo's spy status was unknown to T'Prynn, I was hoping that future revelation would have knocked her for six somewhere down the road. But perhaps, her black-outs (possibly Sten taking control of her body) will hopeful lead to something interesting for the character.
Anyone else get the impression, that perhaps, the thing about T'Prynn that attracts Sandesjo is due to Sten's influence?
One little nitpick: When Pennington and Quinn are facing off against Broon, Pennington starts to depressurise the cargo bay then blast the controls. Later Pennington hits the controls to stop the depressurisation, how did he do that if he blasted the controls?
Overall, the Vanguard saga so far is a little frustrating, in that I as a reader I'm seeing more pieces of the puzzle from all the different view-points, whereas the main characters are lagging behind in that knowledge. Still, that does make it a sweeter when the Reyes and co. do make connections and it is kind of exciting not knowing which faction will find the next piece of the puzzle.
Although, I prefer Harbinger to Summon the Thunder by a small margin, I like that StT ended on a more positive note. At the end of Harbinger everything was falling apart for a lot of the main characters, but after reading StT I feeling like things are starting to pull together again.
Well, here’s one more looking forward to the next instalment of ST: Vanguard! Great work guys!!
P.S. I think this is my longest post yet!
Nurse Etana Kol, anybody? 
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