Vanguard #1: Harbinger
By David Mack
4/5
()
About this ebook
Returning from its historic first voyage to the edge of the galaxy, the damaged U.S.S. Enterprise™ journeys through the Taurus Reach, a vast and little-known region of space in which a new starbase has been unexpectedly established. Puzzled by the Federation's interest in an area so far from its borders and so near the xenophobic Tholian Assembly, Captain James T. Kirk orders the Enterprise to put in for repairs at the new space station: Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard.
As Kirk ponders the mystery of the enormous base, he begins to suspect that there is much more to Vanguard than meets the eye. It's a suspicion shared by the Tholians, the Orions, and the Klingon Empire, each of whom believes that there are less than benign motives behind the Federation's sudden and unexplained desire to explore and colonize the Taurus Reach.
But when a calamity deep within the Reach threatens to compromise Starfleet's continued presence in the region, Kirk, Spock, and several key specialists from the Enterprise must assist Vanguard's crew in investigating the cause of the disaster and containing the damage. In the process, they learn the true purpose behind the creation of Vanguard, and what the outcome of its mission may mean for life throughout that part of the galaxy.
Inside: Bonus diagrams of Vanguard station!
David Mack
David Mack is the multi-award-winning and the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-eight novels of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure, including the Star Trek Destiny and Cold Equations trilogies. His extensive writing credits include episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and he worked as a consultant on season one of the animated series Star Trek: Prodigy. Honored in 2022 as a Grand Master by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, Mack resides in New York City.
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Reviews for Vanguard #1
70 ratings9 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5a good start to a series, but definitely slow as they introduce every character in turn.
the pacing throughout this and the following books picks up which is good. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Overall, this series reads as if the writing staffs for DS9 and Babylon 5 wrote a new TOS-based TV show. Politics, ancient alien threats, moral ambiguity... nice. ^_^
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm currently on a Star Trek reading binge. After years of doing research for my master's degree, the book I wrote based on my thesis, and the book I edited and wrote an introduction for, I needed to do some reading that was just plain fun and mind cleansing. Having enjoyed the new Star Trek movie and the new online game, I gave in to temptation and went back to one of the guilty pleasures of my youth: Star Trek novels.
The Vanguard series, which David Mack co-created and wrote some of the books for, was a great surprise for me. With a huge cast of characters, known and unknown to Star Trek fans, Harbinger has a complex, satisfying plot and is very well-written. The nods to such things as the change in uniforms between the pilot and the regular show, and a character for whom the school on Deep Space Nine is named, are delights for a long-time Trekkie like me. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I didn't think Star Trek novels would be anything much, before I read this new series. The idea behind Star Trek Vanguard is similar to DS9, but set in the time of the original crew. The main characters are the inhabitants of a secretive space station, bordered by Klingons and another unstable race. The Original Enterprise crew appear sparingly, but when they arrive at the space station, their investigations gradually reveal a discovery of apocalyptic nature.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed this retro TOS novel by David Mack. Mack introduces a fleet of new characters for this story arc, all very intriguing, as is the mystery of the Taurus Reach. Of course, Kirk, Spock, and a few other familiar characters are there. I’m looking forward to the rest of the story.Published in mass market paperback by Pocket Books.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I don't like Star Trek The Original Series on Television, never have, never will, so, needless to say, I haven't read many of the tie in books that are set in that time period. Well, I picked this one up for a very specific storyline, I wasn't anticipating liking it at all, but I found myself drawn in anyway.David Mack is nothing to sneeze at. It's a well written novel, and it's a complicated universe that he's set up. Many storylines he kept helpfully dangling for the next author/authors down the line who write in the Vanguard Universe. All in all, I can't wait to get the next Novel in the series.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5David had done an excellent job here on the start to a wonderfully written series within the crux of Star Trek: The Original Series time-line.(Review Coming)
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is the beginning of the Vanguard series, which I highly recommend reading. Starbase 47 is at the edge of the Taurus reach, a remote region of space at this particular time frame (The Original Series). Starfleet establishes the starbase to partake in a secret mission involving alien technology, which proves to be extremely powerful, something which if Starfleet can develop and expand on could significantly boost their hold in the galaxy against their enemies.David Mack is one of my favorite authors in the Star Trek universe. He can take a character and give that particular element many different dimensions which richly adds to the story. Key think I note is that he can set up the characters dimensions without loosing the reader along the way with long and drawn out diatribes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I like the idea of creating a new Star Trek series in which TOS characters only appear on the periphery. It's well written in that regard. Mack does almost all of the new characters justice by making the reader genuinely interested in them - especially Cervantes Quinn. Some parts of the story seemed to be thrown in for mere shock value, however. One scene in particular consists of maybe 3 pages and advances the story in no way that I can see at this point. Perhaps the nuance to these two characters whom I'm referring to will be expanded upon in much more detail in the following Vanguard novels. It really didn't advance the story in Harbinger, though.