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.
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.
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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