Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

[David Mack]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

That deafening sound you all hear echoing off the skyscrapers of New York would be me going....

D'OH!

Um, Marco, if you read this ... can we fix that at second printing, please?

And that rhythmic, percussive sound you hear now is my head repeatedly striking my desk....

 

[Christopher]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

^^Oops, sorry. I just figured she changed clothes sometime in the interim. Maybe she felt that a skimpy minidress and panty hose were more practical for tramping through the wilderness in than a utilitarian jumpsuit. Yeah, that's the ticket.

 

[David Mack]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Curse you, Bennett! How dare you spot my mistakes!

 

[Rat Boy]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Just finished it an hour ago and I have to say that it's the second-biggest thing I've ever named in my life. Holy connecting the dots, Batman!

 

[JD]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Christopher said:

David Mack said:
As for the leather miniskirt? Let me see, I pictured Alyson Hannigan as Theriault ... Alyson Hannigan in a leather miniskirt ... yes, that works for me.

Well, at one point in the city on Jinoteur, you referred to her being in a blue minidress (i.e. standard Starfleet science uniform, I assume), which puzzled me a bit, since you'd said earlier that all the Sag crew wore green jumpsuits.

Whew, so I'm not the only one who noticed. No one else said anything, so I figured I must have just missed a line about her changing clothes or something somewhere.

 

[Ronald Held]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

I would have thought that the crew would have the option of either uniform.

 

[David Mack]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Well, the point was that I had stated explicitly in the text that the crew of the Sagittarius all wear matching olive-green utility jumpsuits; this was established in Harbinger and reiterated in Reap the Whirlwind.

All was going well until, in the chaos and confusion of an accelerated writing-and-editing schedule, my brain defaulted to TOS standard uniforms when I was visualizing a couple of scenes starring Theriault. Consequently, she is described as wearing a blue minidress when she ought to be wearing an olive jumpsuit.

There were other minor errors and typos, most of which I have since flagged and sent to Marco offline, in case we are able to correct them for future printings.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

David, I have a problem on my hands.

I now own Reap The Whirlwind and really badly want to read it, but I've also got to read The Grapes of Wrath.

I don't have to have TGOW read until August, but I might want to get started on it ASAP. But RTW calls and beckons as well.

What should I do?

 

[Man of Steel]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

David,

Towards the end of Reap the Whilrwind,

Spoiler: RTW

Carol Marcus shows up. IS she going to be a character now or was this a one time deal? Also, I assume that this is several years before the Genesis Project mentioned in TWOK?

 

[David Mack]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

^ She was always a character. Now she's a character who has appeared in Vanguard. And you are correct -- this is roughly 19 years before her canon appearance. As for whether she will continue to appear in future volumes of the series... I don't know. I'll have to wait and see what happens next, just like everyone else.

 

[JD]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Admiral Valeris said:
David, I have a problem on my hands.

I now own Reap The Whirlwind and really badly want to read it, but I've also got to read The Grapes of Wrath.

I don't have to have TGOW read until August, but I might want to get started on it ASAP. But RTW calls and beckons as well.

What should I do?

I'm not David, but I do still have an answer for you. Do what I do and read them both. :thumbsup: Right now I'm reading RTW and A Time TO A Hate. Yes I know it's sad that I'm reading two Trek books, but once I get finished with ATT and the books after them I was going to start reading one Trek, and one non-Trek book.

 

[Smiley]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

I'd read GoW first.

Reason one: Getting the required reading out of the way takes a load off your mind when you get to reading for pleasure.

Reason two: GoW would be a total letdown after the excitement of RtW. GoW is just hunger, dust, poverty, sadness, and unemployment for its entire length.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Smiley said:
GoW is just hunger, dust, poverty, sadness, and unemployment for its entire length.

Can't they eat the grapes?

 

[Trent Roman]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Christopher said:

Smiley said:
GoW is just hunger, dust, poverty, sadness, and unemployment for its entire length.

Can't they eat the grapes?

They're wrathful grapes. Eating them would give the characters upset stomachs.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[CaptainGold]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Mr. Mack,

I have finished the book several weeks ago, and I want to thank you for your hard work in writing it. It is an excellent read, and while I have a few quibbles with it, I really don't want to get into a long discussion about them.


SPOLIERS! SPOILERS!

I do have a question or two that bothers me a lot: 1. Why have the Commodore "spill the beans" and commit career suicide at the end of the book? If them man has reached the level of general officer as he had, the last thing he would do is lay out for all the Federation to see such a top secret project. If is guilt only over General Order 24 on the colony, that would get quashed over time, or blamed on the perps, whomever it may be. Too much is at stake in this deal to just dump it open, and the reasons to keep it secret are just as valid at the end of the book as at the beginning.

I just can't see someone getting to that rank, shepherding such a huge project, then blowing it all up over his ex-wife, a non-aligned colony world, or even a new enemy that can with some difficulty be defeated.

2. Sending a scout ship like the Sagittarius on its mission is a great idea, but wouldn't you think Starfleet would have other ships at Vanguard instead of just another Connie? If Connies at that time were limited to a small number of ships (12 still?) did you consider add another ship class or two to the fleet at Vanguard? Knowing a Battlecruiser is waiting to go in and get the undergunned scout ship (quibble: Both sides have too much good intel on the other side in the book), and after losing the other Fed ship in the first book, you would think Starfleet would radically reinforce Vanguard with other ship types.

END SPOILERS! END SPOILERS!

thanks again for a great read, amd I am working on the spoilers stuff.

 

[JWolf]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

CaptainGold.. you really need spoiler codes.

 

[S. Gomez]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

I just finished Reap The Whirlwind not fifteen minutes ago. I'm typing this without having read the rest of the thread, so I can sort of keep my comments my own; sorry if I sound too repetitive.

:thumbsup:

That pretty much sums up my three main reactions as I put the book down. I haven't read all of David Mack's work on Star Trek (still need to get to A Time To Kill/Heal), but of the ones I have, I think this is the most well-plotted, carefully constructed, and tightly unified—in short, his best yet. My heartiest thanks for a gripping, wonderful experience, David. You've done it again. Tying up major plot threads into a nice little ball and pitching them in new directions isn't easy at all, and it could easily have been screwed up, but not here and not now. Debts are paid (with effects positive and negative) and consequences come down. People who sowed the wind have reaped their whirlwinds, and I can't wait to see where they get swept off to. All the hallmarks of a very satisfying story are here, along with the promise of even better things to come.

Now to scan what's been said to see if my couple of questions have already been dealt with.

 

[Dancing Doctor]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

Smiley said:
I'd read GoW first.

Reason one: Getting the required reading out of the way takes a load off your mind when you get to reading for pleasure.

Reason two: GoW would be a total letdown after the excitement of RtW. GoW is just hunger, dust, poverty, sadness, and unemployment for its entire length.

Thanks for the advice!

All the people I've talked to (basically, the English teachers) have said that GoW is enjoyable, I'll like it, an American classic etc.

 

[Christopher]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

CaptainGold said:
1. Why have the Commodore "spill the beans" and commit career suicide at the end of the book? If them man has reached the level of general officer as he had, the last thing he would do is lay out for all the Federation to see such a top secret project. If is guilt only over General Order 24 on the colony, that would get quashed over time, or blamed on the perps, whomever it may be.

If Reyes were a completely callous, ruthless bastard, then I'm sure he could set aside his direct responsibility for thousands of avoidable deaths, including that of his ex-wife whom he still loved, by blaming it on somebody else. That's how sociopaths deal with such things -- by claiming that everything bad they do is someone else's fault. It's not how decent human beings deal with them.

Too much is at stake in this deal to just dump it open, and the reasons to keep it secret are just as valid at the end of the book as at the beginning.

I just can't see someone getting to that rank, shepherding such a huge project, then blowing it all up over his ex-wife, a non-aligned colony world, or even a new enemy that can with some difficulty be defeated.

It's not over those things. It's about the fact that his own rigid insistence on secrecy, his deliberate decision to put people in harm's way rather than bend the letter of his orders even slightly, led directly to their deaths. It's about the damage that secrets and lies do when they're placed above people's safety. And it's about a man making a decision to be a good man rather than just an obedient soldier.

2. Sending a scout ship like the Sagittarius on its mission is a great idea, but wouldn't you think Starfleet would have other ships at Vanguard instead of just another Connie?

"Just another Connie?" There's nothing "just" about the Constitution class. Best. Starship. Ever. And always welcome.

Speaking more objectively: VNG is a TOS-era series, and including a Constitution-class ship gives it a stronger tie-in to TOS, provides a familiar "look and feel" to connect the series to that era.

 

[David Mack]

Re: Vanguard: Reap the Whirlwind

^ Once again, Christopher has done the heavy lifting for me (muchh appreciated, bro -- thanks), so I'll just add a small note regarding the assignment of ships to Starbase 47. In addition to the Sagittarius and the Endeavour, the U.S.S. Lovell currently is also assigned to the station, as a temporary replacement for the U.S.S. Bombay. Having three Starfleet vessels assigned to one starbase on permanent duty is more than ever saw in TOS.

Keep in mind also that hundreds of other vessels come and go on a regular schedule from the station -- colony transports, freighters, fuel tankers, private ships, etc. The station has its hands full as it is. It hardly needs an armada of ships to tend.

Because, as CaptainGold noted, the Federation and its neighbors are in a tense period of rising political tensions, their respective fleets are spread far and wide along their borders, deployed to protect (or conquer) as much territory as possible. Starfleet just doesn't have the resources to do that and detail multiple capital ships to one starbase far outside UFP territory -- especially when one of the hopes for Operation Vanguard was to keep the project from drawing too much attention.