Blog – Page 37 – The Designer Monologues

March 1, 2018March 1, 2018

Star Trek: Vanguard

Hey there, fellow Trek fans!

I stumbled across this today, and I’m sure some of you will be interested. If you haven’t had a chance to read the 9-book Star Trek: Vanguard novel series (published from 2005-2012), now’s your chance! The entire series is currently for sale in Kindle format for 99 cents each!

If you’re not familiar, Star Trek: Vanguard could basically be elevator-pitched as “Deep Space Nine, but during the Original Series era” — but it was way more than that. It centers around Federation Starbase 47, known as “Vanguard”, which serves as the sector support facility for an area of space known as the Taurus Reach, as well as the center of operations for a secret scientific mission surrounding the discovery of the “Taurus Meta-Genome”, genetically engineered DNA discovered recently within the Reach.

The novels center on the command staff of Vanguard, the three starships permanently assigned to the station, as well as civilians and non-Federation personnel. It’s a large cast, with a ton of character-driven storylines, and frankly is one of the best iterations of Trek out there, in my opinion.

Click on the covers below to be taken to the individual books’ product pages on Amazon, and grab these while the deal is available!

February 28, 2018February 28, 2018

30 Day Book Challenge – Finale

OK, so technically it’s going to be a 28-day book challenge.

I used this as a way to train myself to post something here daily, and I feel that it’s served it’s purpose, so I don’t feel the need to continue past the end of the month. I’m going to switch over to actual, y’know, CONTENT, starting tomorrow.

So for my final challenge, I’m taking the least-worst of the (frankly weak) final questions, and going with: Favorite book of all time.

And, fair warning: I’m cheating a little bit. I’m treating Stephen King’s Dark Tower series as a single book.

I figure that’s allowed, because it’s a complete epic narrative, although it wasn’t split into multiple books from a longer work (like Lord of the Rings), it was built one installment at a time, over decades.

More importantly, I absolutely love it.

Which is the point, after all.

February 27, 2018February 27, 2018

30 Day Book Challenge, Day 27

Today’s challenge: Most surprising plot twist or ending.

It’s almost become a cliché now, but I’m going to go with the execution of Ned Stark toward the end of A Game of Thrones.

I’d read a lot of Big Book Fantasy, and the set up was all there: Ned in trouble for sticking to his principles, about to be executed in public, members of his family in attendance… I thought I knew where this was headed. A last-minute rescue — I mean, as far as I knew, Ned was our main protagonist.

Nope. Off with his head. My expectations were gone.

And sure, now the idea that George R.R. Martin will gleefully slaughter the characters that you care about has grown to the point of self-parody, but at the time? I wasn’t expecting it, and I haven’t been shocked like that since.