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Liked It “Really great series. I wanted to see each installment as soon as I finished the last. This book started the series off with a bang and had some intriguing new characters.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“Really great series. I wanted to see each installment as soon as I finished the last. This book started the series off with a bang and had some intriguing new characters.”
Melvin K. Patterson wrote this review Tuesday, January 24, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Great book”
Tobias Wright wrote this review Sunday, January 8, 2012. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Returning from from the edge of known space and haunted by the memory of having to kill his best friend, Captain James T. Kirk is astonished to find a massive, fully-operational Starfleet base far from the Federation's core worlds. Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard, sits at the entrance to the Taurus Reach, an unexplored area of space that has evidently caught Starfleet's attention -- for reasons unknown to Kirk, and to most of the Vanguard crew, save the four officers briefed by Starfleet Intelligence. Kirk is only too happy to put in for shore leave and enjoy the aminities of the station, but no sooner are his ship's repairs done than does terrible news reach the base: the USS Bombay, attached to Vanguard, has been attacked. Because Vanguard's other ships are away on assignments of their own, the base commander asks Kirk to investigate Bombay's disappearance -- and a mystery involving a 'map written in the stars' begins to unravel.
smellincoffee wrote this review Saturday, February 5, 2011. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Star Trek Vanguard is hailed as one of the superior Trek series out there, and I've been curious about for a long while. I almost started the series at its inception in 2005, interested by the space-station setting. Like Deep Space Nine, the Vanguard books will make use of long-running plot arcs, in this case a great mystery hidden inside the Taurus Reach that has the Tholians and Klingons interested to boot. Though Jim Kirk and the Enterprise make a strong showing here, Vanguard isn't their series: while the Enterprise will move on to the rest of its first-season adventures (the Gary Mitchell episode starting TOS) following Harbinger, Vanguard's robust set of characters will explore the mystery of the Reach and avoid war with their prickly neighbors. In addition to the usual Starfleet folks, Mack introduces a soulful Vulcan woman with a mysterious past who works for Starfleet Intelligence; a charming rogue with his own cargo ship who sometimes breaks the law, but isn't as big a rascal as Mal Reynolds or Han Solo; and Tim Pennington, an enthusiastic reporter whose overactive interest in what Vanguard is up to may get him in trouble. The writing is superior, as is to be expected from Mack: particularly in regards to dialogues. He does emotionally difficult speeches and snappy conversation well. There are plenty of little references to Trek canon (and lit-canon), which help in reader immersion, and the setting (immediately following "Where No Man Has Gone Before") sees the transition from the pilot sets and uniforms into the TOS era, where command officers wear gold, operations wear red, and "women wear less".
Excellent start to the Vanguard series: the reader is thrown into the thick of things from the get-go as the Vanguard officers try to keep a lid on their operation in the amidst of alien aggression, tragedy, and a conscientiously nosy reporter. I'm looking forward to what transpires. This series looks to have been planned well from the star: the book even includes diagrams of the station, which was most helpful.”
“Love David Mack. I particularly like how he used the TOS cast to set up the Vanguard characters, how they interacted, and how each cast of characters was as full as the other.
coaxialcreature wrote this review Friday, April 2, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Very nice introduction to a new series. ”
“Excellent beginning to a new series taking place during the original Star Trek series, but involving characters outside the Enterprise.”
Kevin H wrote this review Sunday, February 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“After thoroughly enjoying the Star Trek movie I am looking to reconnect with my Star Trek roots, so I went looking for novels set in The Original Series (TOS) universe. The reviews on the Vanguard series were pretty stellar and the cover art was really cool. It shows the old school Enterprise flying toward a huge starbase. Essentially, it looked like a pretty good re-entry point back into the Star Trek universe.
Matt wrote this review Wednesday, June 17, 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I soon discovered that this is really a set up story for the rest of the series. None of the major plot points are resolved and new questions arise during the course of this story. Once you come to grips with this realization then it turns into an entertaining novel.
At the beginning of the novel an exploratory ship, Federation ship U.S.S. Constellation, discovers a complex life form in a section of space known as the Taurus Reach. This discovery is relayed back to Starfleet and they ramp up the building of a new starbase called Vanguard.
Starbase 47 or Vanguard is eventually put into service at the far reaches of unclaimed space in between the Tholians, the Orions and the Klingon Empire. In some respects this kinda reminded me of Babylon 5 or Deep Space Nine. A huge space station set in the middle of several alien universes with the potential of a conflict to arise at any time. The blurb on the dust jacket solely mentions the involvement of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her crew. But this is a misnomer as Kirk, Spock, Scotty, etc. are relegated to side characters and really do not play an important part in the story.
The first 80 to 100 pages are dedicated to the introduction of the various characters stationed on Vanguard. Such as Commodore Diego Reyes, Lieutenant Commander T’Prynn (a Vulcan), journalist Tim Pennington and his mistress Captain Oriana D’Amato, mercenary (Han Solo like) Cervantes Quinn and the Orion crime lord Ganz. Mr. Mack does a good job of setting each character up for a long series haul but I felt the book wandered too much in the beginning without much plot. My personal favorite is T’Prynn as the cold and calculating Vulcan security officer. Mr. Mack developed an interesting aspect to this character by inserting a Katra of a vindictive Vulcan named Sen into T’Prynn which forces her to constantly battle against herself to keep control (think of Spock’s Katra as he placed into Dr. McCoy at the end of Wrath of Kahn).
The novel really begins to pick up when the U.S.S. Bombay is sent on a routine mission to the Federation outpost on the planet Ravanar IV. They are sent to deliver some replacement equipment that was previously damaged and or stolen by Cervantes Quinn on behalf of the crime lord Ganz. While the U.S.S. Bombay is preparing to orbit the planet they are suddenly attacked by six Tholian vessels. The proceeding space battle is one of the best sequences I have ever read and Mr. Mack does an excellent job of describing the action. Space battles are difficult for most authors as they tend to lose readers in the action and after awhile it just becomes confusing. Not so in this novel as it felt like watching some of the better space battles in the Star Trek movies.
Needless to say it does not go well for the U.S.S Bombay and the outpost on Ravanar IV suddenly goes silent. Soon after, the Enterprise is dispatched to find what happened to the Bombay and why the outpost has gone silent.
From this point forward the story becomes more interesting and moves at a faster pace. I finally began to get into the groove of the story and started to recognize most of characters by their name. The ending of the novel arrives pretty quickly and my only complaint is the lack resolution of the major plot points.
Overall this is a good foundation novel for the rest of the Vanguard series and I do plan to continue my adventure within this universe. It was not quite was I was looking for in my reintroduction back into Star Trek but in many ways it was a pleasant surprise.”
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