Precipice

I was happy to get this book as it is the latest in the Star Trek Vanguard series. It is a good read and well worth the price.

This is David's best Star Trek book to date and that is saying something because he is an excellent author whos stories never disappoint. Precipice is the latest chapter in the Vanguard series. It is one of those books when you start reading it you dont want to put it down. The plot is excellent and the characterizations are excellent. The book changes from scene to scene with ease and the action is expertly balanced with character development. Much of the book takes place off station. Im being vague because I dont want to give anything away. Its a must read for Star Trek fans. This book is on my top 20 list of favorite Star Trek books. I always know David's books will be a good read & I have never been disappointed. I dont think the average person realizes the time & effort it takes for an author to create a good story. I love to read & I appreciate... all the hard work and long hours authors put in for my enjoyment.

If you have read the first four Vanguard books, you've clearly already ordered this and are loving it, so I'm going to assume you saw this and clicked on it out of idle curiosity because you don't know what Vanguard is. Well, you're about to be really happy you found this, because you're about to discover the best Trek books made these days... and I don't mean that lightly; Trek novels are the best they've ever been right now. But this series is clearly the cream of the crop. The series is: Harbinger (David Mack) Summon The Thunder (Dayton Ward & Kevin Dilmore) Reap The Whirlwind (David Mack) Open Secrets (Dayton Ward) and this book here. This is Trek without rules; Trek that will kill people, fire people, demote people, deeply change people... destroy whole ships or planets or solar systems... surprise you with every twist and turn. It's a Trek that features notable characters completely outside the Trek paradigm (archaeology officers, intelligence operatives, crews of ships that only hold 20 people, mercenaries, reporters, gangsters, you name it). And it's all encompassed in a story that wraps around the TOS mythology, providing alternate perspectives that blend the whole original series together and make the union substantially stronger as a result. It's awesome. It's like if HBO re-imagined the original Star Trek. Should you start with this book, though? No. Go buy Harbinger, and experience this ride from the beginning. You'll be glad you did.

The last Vanguard book, "Open Secrets", left some characters in seemingly irresolvable situations. New characters were even introduced to replace them. Was the series moving on? Could the lives of the players we grew to love in the early books be salvaged from the inextricable boxes they'd been written into? I won't ruin anything with an answer, but only say it was handled much better than I thought it would be. Even the potentially disastrous wild pass Ward threw at the end of OS gets pulled in for a 60-yard gain by David Mack. The story is fast paced with plenty of action, stylistically hearkening to "Reap the Whirlwind". At 330 pages it's also the shortest Vanguard book, making a pretty quick read. For a series that felt spent after book 3, book 5 makes everything feel fresh. If you love the Trek universe and don't need Kirk, Picard or other onscreen personages to carry you, this is the series to be reading. Although it's always best to start with the first book in a series, I'd say it's ok to start here if you wanted to. This one's engaging with much that's new or easy to pick up on, and any info needed from prior books is effortlessly woven into the story.

This book starts off great, and gets better. You need to read the first books to appreciate the charaters and story, but all in all, this book is better than the JJ abrams movie that jarred the ST timeline and added a dark chapter earlier this year. Had they let David Mack write and direct the series, Paramount may have salvaged what is left of a very good reputation. Action, suspence, logic, intrigue...this novel has it all. The best ST book in a long time. Too bad Paramount has so mismanaged this franchise. This is an excellent story and book.