Summon the Thunder

I have to say that I didn't think I would like this series when I first bought the books. That said, this 3 book series was very entertaining and well written. I enjoyed the books so much that I have sought out others by David Mack, who wrote the first (Harbinger) and third (Reap the Whirlwind) books in the series. Suggestion: don't read this book first. Get Harbinger. It is worth it to get to the final book, Whirlwind. You may as well get all three; they are so entertaining you'll want to go from one to the other seamlessly.

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!

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 som

"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.