SCE #64/VAN: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Sho]

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Distant Early Warning is a Starfleet Corps of Engineers story by Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore. Set in the TOS era and featuring the crew of the USS Lovell (seen previously in the SCE installments Foundations and Where Time Stands Still, by the same authors) it serves as a prequel to the Vanguard series of novels. However, it was released only after Vanguard's Harbinger, in the month prior to the release of Summon the Thunder, Vanguard's second installment (again by Ward and Dilmore). Following this original ebook release, it was later put on paper as part of the What's Past omnibus edition of several SCE stories.

This time around, our hero engineers are tasked with getting to the bottom of a mysterious series of defects plagueing the freshly constructed Watchtower-class space station Vanguard, and also get caught up with a series of crimes committed aboard it.

Here's the official blurb from the Simon & Schuster website:

2265: Following the discoveries made by the U.S.S. Constellation in the Taurus Reach, Starfleet has fast-tracked the construction of Starbase 47, a.k.a. Vanguard. But the rapid construction has meant concomitant technical problems, ones that are vexing Vanguard's commanding officer, Commodore Diego Reyes.

So it's the Corps of Engineers to the rescue. The U.S.S. Lovell, with its crack S.C.E. team led by Lt. Commander Mahmud al-Khaled, must solve Vanguard's technical crises so the base can become operational as planned.

A return to the 23rd century, in the tradition of Foundations and Where Time Stands Still, and a prequel to the acclaimed new novel series Star Trek: Vanguard!

You can also read an excerpt here: http://books.simonandschuster.com/D...orps-of-Engineers/9781416533092/browse_inside

 

[Sho]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Having caught up with the SCE series some time before finally starting on Vanguard this year, I read this one a couple of years back already, but took some time to reread it recently before getting started on Summon the Tunder, which it ties into. And it's a good thing I did, too, because I had forgotten about Farber's transfer to the station at the end of the story, and hadn't made the connection while reading Harbinger.

The Lovell's crew has always been a fun bunch to visit, and I once again enjoyed this story for its treatment of the characters. Writing a Vanguard prequel featuring them was a great idea; they fit right in.

That said, one moment in the story has a super-glaring logic problem for me that I got hung up on both times around: The whole thing where the transmitter's self-destruct kills Vanguard's original chief engineer, Curtis Ballard. Just prior to that, Farber investigates the device and determines that it hasn't been booby-trapped, curiously overlooking the energy potential and components required to disintegrate both it and whoever's holding it. Given the lack of an explanation (no mention of special shielding or something like that) this should have at least raised a suspicion of gross negligence, but it never gets addressed, and Farber's pang of guilt at the whole thing is just about how he could have been the one holding the device, not how he was in a position to prevent the thing from going off. Odd.

The other problem I have with the story is that I expected for the two plot lines (the carrier wave, and the murders) to become intertwined at some point, and when that never happened I felt that something was missing to retroactively justify some of the bigger coincidences in the story (you know, as stories like to do - it's so common that coincidences automatically set up an expectation for an elaborate piece of exposition later on that ties everything together).

But the above kinda sounds more critical than it should. As a prequel/backstory to Vanguard's it certainly does nicely, especially when it shows Reyes' willingness to cut deals with criminals caught up in murders aboard his station - something I hadn't seen in Reyes during Harbinger. I voted Average.

 

[bok2384]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

That's good timing, I finished this novella the other day and I'm well into Summon the Thunder now.

For me, I had to vote Average for this story. Maybe, I'm being too harsh, but this story fail to grip me in any way. Sure we had a bit of a technical mystery and a bit of a murder mystery, but it felt flat.

Saying that, I did like that we got to learn some more about the crew of the USS Lovell and I especially liked Captain Okagawa's scenes with Commodore Reyes looking at their contrasting command styles and former service records. Of course, this all paid off in the final scene with Ganz with Reyes running circles around the Orion merchant prince. Always good scenes in Vanguard.

It was strange going back and reading at this point in the series and, indeed with Summon the Thunder, and knowing the answers to the majority of the questions posed in this story. Maybe this is why it fell a bit flat.

 

[Sho]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Agreed though, the bit about Okagawa and Reyes having served under the same Captain once but taking home very different lessons was interesting. In general I felt like this story showed a lot more of Reyes' character than all of Harbinger did, despite the Vanguard crew technically not being the hero characters. I think that definitely makes it worth reading in the context of a Vanguard read-through.

 

[shanejayell]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Good story, didn't wow me much.

 

[bok2384]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

Agreed though, the bit about Okagawa and Reyes having served under the same Captain once but taking home very different lessons was interesting. In general I felt like this story showed a lot more of Reyes' character than all of Harbinger did, despite the Vanguard crew technically not being the hero characters. I think that definitely makes it worth reading in the context of a Vanguard read-through.

Absolutely, although I won't be actually reading the novels after Summon the Thunder as I read them last year, I'll still be participating in the threads.

I have to agree with you about Reyes character, this did wonders for him and you start to see the man behind the commodore. Summon the Thunder also does this to a degree as you begin to understand how much pressure he is under in his job and the toll it is taking on him personally, from missing being at his mothers funeral, the relationship with Rana Desai and other things that are revealed in Reap the Whirlwind. Of course, that novel opens up another can of worms for Reyes but there'll be no spoilers here.

 

[sfroth]

Re: SCE #64/Vanguard: Distant Early Warning Review Thread (Spoilers!)

I reread this as a prelude to my Vanguard reread, which I think was a mistake. I felt like the story didn't stand on its own, and didn't enjoy it as much as I remember the first time around. I felt like there were a number of almost-inconsistencies between DEW and Harbinger, particularly about Reyes' deal with Ganz. IMO, the best thing about the book is getting a closer look at Farber, who I think has been fairly well ignored otherwise.