Star Trek: Vanguard

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I just finished reading Reap the Whirlwind, the third book in the Star Trek Series Vanguard. I know, it's not current news and the book is seven years old now, but I just read it and I think it's worth sharing.

Vanguard focuses on events surrounding the Taurus Reach, a mostly unexplored region of space between the borders of the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Tholian Assembly. The series is named for Starbase 47, Vanguard, where a lot of the story takes place. The Federation moved into the Taurus Reach in order to study the Taurus Meta-Genome, an incredibly complex genetic structure that seems to hold the key to much more than a specie's genetic material. The Klingon's are trying to discover what the Federation is after and the Tholians are trying very hard to keep both parties out. The reasons why become clear when the Shedai, an ancient collection of beings that can shed their physical bodies and have godlike powers, come back from their eons long self-induced hibernation and try to use the Tholians as the slaves they once were inside the Shedais' machines.

Reap the Whirlwind continues the plot lines set down in the previous two books and has the Federation making it to the Jinoteur system, the seeming source of the Shedais' power. The middle of the book is full of explosive action and I found it difficult to stop reading at that point. There is great character development in this story, and the story and characters are pretty deep for a Star Trek novel. This is certainly a long way from the original Star Trek books. It has a good mix of action, political intrigue, legal drama, and real stories of human interaction. By the end of part two, the story seems to be done. The third part, while very interesting, feels like an extended epilogue. Each of the chapters wraps up the hanging plot lines, of which there are many. Some of these later chapters leave obvious places for the fourth book in the series to pick up, while others neatly tie up a sub plot. Reap the Whirlwind nicely wraps up the first story arc, while setting the series up for a refreshing new start.

I get that people usually write about new or upcoming releases, and this book is pretty old, but I really enjoyed reading it. Being a few years old doesn't mean a book is worthless, or that everyone that would enjoy it has read it, so I hope a few people out there are inspired to start reading the Vanguard series. It is a very well written set of books with a very deep set of plot lines. If you've never read a Star Trek book before, this would be a great place to start. It is separate from the events in the main novel arcs and the TV series, and it would be great on its own, even if you took all the Star Trek jargon out of it.