Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Vanguard #2: Summon the Thunder

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Summon the Thunder is the second Star Trek: Vanguard novel after the wonderful Harbinger. While the previous book set up the entire situation, this book takes it and runs with it. We (along with the characters) learn a little bit more about the secrets harbored in this vast region of space called the Taurus Reach. Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore pile on the political problems as well as the scientific ones, and basically ratchet the entire thing up a notch. The only thing marring this a bit is that it's a little slow. Summon the Thunder is huge, and at times slows to an almost glacial pace. But once things start happening, this book is hard to put down.

Station 47, also known as "Vanguard," occupies a region of space between two rather violent empires: the Klingons and the Tholians. The Starfleet presence in the Reach is ostensibly to facilitate colonization, but it also has a deeper purpose. Remnants of an ancient civilization have been found, including bits and pieces of a huge genetic construct that could be a weapon, or something even worse, and it must be kept secret from all outsiders until they know. This has already cost the Federation one starship, and it appears that another one may be doomed as well, when something on the planet Erilon awakens, and it's not happy. Could this entity also be responsible for the destruction of a Klingon world too? And how is it related to the meta-genome that Starfleet scientists are desperately trying to solve? Tensions are heightening between the Tholians and the Klingons, and even the Romulans are wondering what's going on in this region of space. Will the political situation explode before Starfleet can figure out what's going on? The conspiracy of silence is broadened as Commodore Reyes is once again forced to try to explain what happened to a ship without letting every conceivable cat out of the bag.

Summon the Thunder is an awesome book, suffering in comparison to Harbinger only in the pacing issues, and since that is the only real problem with the book, I'll get it out of the way quickly. The first third of the book explains a lot of stuff, with a lot of characterization and rearranging pieces for the rest of the story. A lot of the characterization is good stuff (I love the sequences between disgraced Federation reporter Tim Pennington and rogue trader Cervantes Quinn as they go off on their mission), but some of it just seemed a little too detailed and started to drag. There is one action sequence, incredibly told, and there is some plot movement, but it smacked more of setting the table than anything else. I read this book more slowly than many Trek books, and while part of it was the size (it's 135,000 words) part of it was the slow pace at the beginning.

Surprisingly, given my problems with the last Ward-Dilmore books I read (A Time to Sow and A Time to Harvest), this had nothing to do with continuity references. There is a fair share of them, and they do have to give some idea of what happened in Harbinger for those who missed it, but these references were extremely well done and didn't affect the pacing at all. In fact, I'd have to say this is the best written book by them that I've read (granted, I've only read three of them, and one by Ward himself). The plotting is dense but completely understandable, and a lot is happening, especially once you get to the half-way point. The action scenes are almost up to David Mack level, especially those in the claustrophobic setting down on the planet.

Exceptionally good are the characterizations. There are too many to go into, but I loved Quinn and Pennington (who also added some much-needed humour to the proceedings) the most. Quinn feels guilty for his part in Pennington's downfall (though not guilty enough to admit to it, of course), so he's taken him in. The dialogue between the two of them during their trip to their various destinations is a riot, creating a relationship that is two parts frustration and one part grudging respect between the two. I don't think they particularly like each other, but subsequent events bring them just that little bit closer, and the authors do a great job on them. While I can't really detail any of the others, I can definitely say that there is not one characterization misstep in the book. All of them are interesting and have their own quirks that make them human (rather than quirks that sound like they come out of a character profile).

Ward and Dilmore also do the plotting tap dance with precision. It must be hard in an open-ended series with an overarching plot to give the reader some sense of plot advancement without giving too much away too early. Summon the Thunder does that in spades, where we find out some tasty tidbits about the history of the Taurus Reach, the Federation makes some discoveries of its own, and some of the character subplots are brought forward too. Especially interesting is a revelation about the diplomat's assistant who is really a Klingon spy. We find out that she's much more than a spy, and the authors reveal this in a very low key way. I actually had to stop myself and ask "did we already know this?" Of course, we didn't, and I like the fact that attention wasn't drawn to it.

Summon the Thunder is a worthy sequel to Harbinger. A wonderfully told story that just whets your appetite for more of these vivid characters. Some claimed that the characters weren't that sympathetic in the first book. I think those who feel that way will be pleasantly surprised. Bring on Reap the Whirlwind!

David Roy

"Summon the Thunder" has a fast moving action filled plot but Ward and Dilmore manage the multiple plot threads extremely well and never lose you. At the same time they manage to seamlessly bringing the reader back up to speed on the events that have previously transpired.

The authors have also done an outstanding job of evoking that early TOS era. Through the point of view of the large cast of characters, who represent many different but mostly familiar species, it's like stepping back in time when you read this book.

They've done an equally impressive job with the character development in this story, which gives us the first opportunity to get to know the crew of the U.S.S. Endeavor, one of the starships assigned to the station.

This second book is quite a bit longer than the first. The story offers plenty of surprises and leaves you anxious to find out where the story goes from here.

It went rather slow in parts, but has its moments. We see the potential of a major inter-stellar conflict developing... Tholians, Klingons, the federation and Romulans. The one thing which I really like about the series and this installment is that it doesn't neglect the personal struggles of the characters, it really goes into main characters minds. As the series progresses, I'm eager to learn more about the individual characters and the developing conflict.

In HARBINGER, a new, colorful crew is created by David Mack...stationed on a remote, yet massive station called Vanguard at the edge of a mysterious area of space called the Taurus Reach. After a starship, the Bombay, is destroyed, the lives and missions of these new TOS era are woven together in a superbly deep plot manifesting with clandestined operations, intrigue, and exploration. Some of the characters include the tormented Vulcan spymaster T'Prynn; the overworked, Sisko-esque Commodore Reyes; Pennington...the reporter who fell fron grace because of the Vulcan; and the most interesting (I think) character, the "Han Solo meets Don Quixote" Cervantes Quinn (his ship is even named after Quixote's horse, Rocinante).

SUMMON THE THUNDER is to HARBINGER as THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK is to A NEW HOPE; a spectacular plot thickener that sets the stage for a HUGE sequel. And there WILL be one; the last two chapters and the "Elsewhere" epilogue set it up for a "knock it out of the park" sequel. The Federation's top scientists discover and somemhow activate mysterious, planet exploding devices whose purpose, age, and manufacturer is an unknown, much like Vanguard's "true" mission. They also wake up a mysterious-yet- violent/deadly being known as "The Warroir."

The biggest problem is that the third part of this trilogy comes out next May, for which I cannot wait. SUMMON is great, but definetly read HARBINGER first. You will not be disappointed, especially if you like TOS. For that I give SUMMON and HARBINGER 5 stars.

These Vanguard stories are really great and a wonderful addition to the Star Trek universe! This one is a worthy sequel to Harbinger and I hope more in the series follow quickly!

While I greatly enjoyed the first book in this series, especially the 'panoramic' take on Star Trek with a minor focus on the main 'iconic' characters of the era (Kirk, Spock, etc), this second novel fell flat. The story itself is interesting enough, and the action is much more prevalent throughout.

Where it fails is as follows:

1. An apparent need to remind the reader of every major event that occurred in the first book, often multiple times. Since basically every event in the first book was a major event, this means that there's a lot of explanatory information of past events. Some of it is justified and done well. These tend to be a character remembering a name or event as something that motivates them. What I didn't like were the paragraphs, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, that summarized events in Book 1. Obviously the writers were attempting to make it possible to read the book without having read the first book. The clumsiness of this effort really detracts from the readability in places.

2. Poor writing. The writing simply isn't as clear or evocative as David Mack's style.

3. One of the most important things in a series like this is to make sure that the characters are rendered consistently. The first novel featured memorable characters, each with their own 'voice'. You could probably remove the character's name near the end of the novel and figure out who was being written about. For some reason, the portrayal of the same characters in this novel felt more generic. The new characters added also seem fairly generic or stereotyped.

4. Repetition of how a character feels is a constant theme here. Each time the story comes back to some characters, the authors seem to feel a need to remind us of what they were feeling the last time they were featured. As far as I'm concerned, if the character's feelings haven't changed, we don't need to keep being reminded except if said feelings change. This also applies to injuries. If a character receives an injury in this novel, you can be sure that the injury will be mentioned just about EVERY time they take an action or speak. This needed to be done a bit more sparingly and subtly.

5. One storyline seems only very tangentially connected to the events of the main story. Perhaps there's a reason for it being included, but given that no one in the main story is connected to this side storyline, it felt completely superfluous in this novel except as a way to heighten tension in the region. I can see a couple of ways that it might foreshadow some events that occur later in the television series, and the gameplan might be to bring this side storyline more fully into the main story in book 3, but for now it's a weakness.

6. Confusing motives. There's one fairly major bit of confusion near the end of the book, at least in my mind. One character is presented as being conflicted and then suddenly seems to have resolved the conflict without that transition being portrayed in the novel itself.

I'm looking forward to Part 3, mainly because the original author will be the writer. This second novel is probably required reading for anyone who wants to read the third novel, but I certainly wouldn't consider recommending the book by itself to anyone.

Having just finished Vanguard #1, I was excited to download and begin reading #2. Unforunately, I was immediately put off by the poor formatting in a full priced product. Let's get your act together, publishers!

This book kept the momentum of the first but didn't increase the appeal much to me. It had 4 good action sequences pretty well distributed to keep the pace up and did a good job increasing the mystery of the Taurus genome while filling in a bit by introducing the Shendai. I didn't find it kept me as hooked as book 1 but it did leave me wanting to know what happens next. There was some excellent character development, especially among the Endeavor crew with its reluctant captain. I also enjoyed the introduction of the USS Lovell, the rundown Daedalus that the engineers had turned into their private engineering toy; I've never read SCE material and enjoyed this introduction to them. It also had some nice twists in it, such as the Klingon agent now being a double agent. The fight scenes were also well described so I was able to get a pretty good mental picture; the image of the impaled Denobulan just won't leave my brain. I found some of the dialog dry though and hope some of the scenes have significance in later books otherwise they were needless filler, specifically all those having to do with the Romulans.

I definitely am looking forward to the next one.

David Mack's Harbinger set high expectations for the Vanguard series, and I am happy to say that this book (second in the series) does not disappoint. The situation in the Taurus Reach turns out to be even more complex than what we saw in Harbinger. Tensions between Klingons, Tholians, and the Federation continue to rise. There are surprises involving the players involved and how they interact. We also learn more about the secret aliens behind the artifacts. One of the story lines is somewhat comic, but that doesn't detract from the book.

The book itself was a quick read. There is enough action and suspense to make the book satisfying in itself, though reading it made me instantly look for book 3 (Reap the Whirlwind). If you enjoyed Harbinger, you will enjoy this book.

Most of the characterizations in this series are reasonably plausible. I cannot say I care that much for the villains in this series. The main strength of this series, in my opinion, is strong characterization and a plausible depiction of how Starfleet Command really operates.

This story mainly engages the reader although it is overlong and somewhat wordy in parts. A minor complaint. I enjoyed it, and most Star Trek fans will enjoy it too. RJB.