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Post by finarvyn on Jul 5, 2011 20:50:52 GMT -5
Apologies if there is a thread on this already. I looked and couldn't find one.
Apparently there is a new Vangard book coming out soon. (The Vanguard series is a novel-only one.) Wikipedia says it came out in June but I haven't seen it yet. Vanguard is a space station in an obscure quadrent of space.
The series: 1. Harbinger by David Mack 2. Summon the Thunder by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore 3. Reap the Whirlwind Mack 4. Open Secrets Ward, story by Ward and Dilmore 5. Precipice Mack 6. Declassified Mack, Marco Palmieri, Ward, Dilmore
COMING SOON: 7. What Judgments Come Ward and Dilmore (TBR September 2011) 8. Storming Heaven Mack (TBR 2012)
I've only read the first couple in the series but it's set in the TOS era and is pretty cool overall. Not much interaction with the crew of the Enterprise, but occasionally they pop into the storyline.
Anyone else read these? What do you think about them?
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Post by blackbat242 on Jul 6, 2011 21:24:31 GMT -5
I like them... although he does put some elements of other-species relations that are more involved and "regularized" than in the TOS episodes contemporary with the novels.
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Post by finarvyn on Jul 8, 2011 14:08:16 GMT -5
One thing that I like about it is that it's not an "alternate" universe and it still takes place during the TOS era. Sure, the main Enterprise crew don't show up much, but it still has a pretty decent plotline and good characters.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 8, 2011 14:54:59 GMT -5
I must say, I am very impressed and intrigued by the reviews I have read of these books.
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Post by blackbat242 on Jul 8, 2011 23:36:03 GMT -5
Sure, the main Enterprise crew don't show up much, but it still has a pretty decent plotline and good characters. I always preferred TOS-era fiction to NOT feature the series characters... as they all-to-often introduced continuity problems and "biography" conflicts if taken as part of the whole TOS universe. Besides, few of the authors who wrote TOS-era fiction could actually deal well with the series characters... most made their personalities into "cardboard cut-out" superficial ones. Those who wrote with new characters and different ships nearly always made fully-developed, "real" characters that were interesting to read about. After all, there is orders of magnitude more to Starfleet than one ship and a handful of officers and crew... I always wanted to know what ELSE was going on in the Federation besides what Captain Jerk(off) and the Enterpoop were doing.
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Post by finarvyn on Jul 9, 2011 7:18:16 GMT -5
After all, there is orders of magnitude more to Starfleet than one ship and a handful of officers and crew... I always wanted to know what ELSE was going on in the Federation Especially true from a role-playing perspective. Playing a new set of characters is almost always more successful than simply playing stereotyped versions of the same Enterprise characters that we've all seen in action, plus you avoid the "but McCoy would never do that" kinds of arguments.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 11, 2011 0:07:05 GMT -5
The idea of starting with familiar characters and situations, and having them “hand it off”, is a tried and true one.
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Post by aramis on Jul 11, 2011 0:36:05 GMT -5
Having used the handoff mode in RPGs, for excellent effect, I can see it working for novels as well.
Especially since I tend to run games set about the time of the 1st movie.
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Post by finarvyn on Jul 11, 2011 14:53:24 GMT -5
Did something get edited here? Reading Falconer's post and then Aramis' quote of Falconer's post seems not to match. As far as the timeframe of Vanguard goes, it's supposed to be right around the start of TOS season 1, I think.
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Post by Falconer on Jul 11, 2011 18:17:13 GMT -5
Awwww, crap, sorry Aramis, I hit “modify” when I meant to hit “quote”. So I overwrote your post when I just meant to reply to you.
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Post by aramis on Jul 11, 2011 20:06:56 GMT -5
Awwww, crap, sorry Aramis, I hit “modify” when I meant to hit “quote”. So I overwrote your post when I just meant to reply to you. I fixed it... As to why: 1) all the OS continuing characters are still alive, including Adm. Komack, so I can involve them if I want. 2) the uprated ships are just becoming available 3) it's around the start of fed involvement in the SFU general war 4) I like the uniforms
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Post by finarvyn on Sept 23, 2019 18:21:52 GMT -5
Eight years later and I picked the first book in the series up off of my shelf. It's been so long that I felt I needed to start over, which means I will probably never get through more than the first couple books. A decent re-read so far. Not amazing, not bad.
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Post by Falconer on Sept 24, 2019 11:48:38 GMT -5
I have been collecting a lot of the Pocket Books series, but haven’t really read any yet. I did read The Galactic Whirlpool, by David Gerrold, based on his script for a two-parter episode which was never produced. The novel was published in 1980 by Bantam when they still had the license. So it has a lot of Gerrold’s ideas about how startfleet works, its history, and a lot of ideas about Kirk’s character which are very interesting; but it reads a little too much like a novelization. So a lot of dialogue is delivered and there are action scenes which read more or less like a script, and in between lines people think about stuff, and the author goes off on tangents explaining stuff, but it doesn’t quite read like a novel, if that makes sense.
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Post by finarvyn on Sept 24, 2019 20:52:31 GMT -5
I have that book, but haven't read it in decades. Maybe I can find to dust it off. The problem is that I have too many books and not enough time.
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