It's sort of weird when you get near the end of a story and realize that there's nearly another whole book to be read. Not a bad thing exactly, but it was a bit distracting, because after about page 351 the story truly seemed concluded to me, and concluded well. But, you read what is on the page and so I kept going and it was a good little extra novella after the first part, though not as very exciting as the first part of the book. Mack is a very good author when it comes to weaving all these new characters (and life forms) with the established canon of Star Trek (of which there seemed to be more in this book than the previous two).

On the whole I thought it was the best book of these three Vanguard books that I've read so far. A lot of questions that the first two books posed were answered, but of course, new questions were asked as well as new problems and situations cropped up so that the series wouldn't die off. ( )

The pace really picks up in this third installment of the Vanguard series. A lot of loose ends seem to be tied up and I'm curious to see what develops in the next book. I liked the way this book spent more time on Drs. Fisher and M'Benga. I also liked the strong links to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?book=1079 ( )