This is a weird book. It’s along the line of “World Ship Praxis” which I liked and could understand. This book is also about a world ship “Relentless”, but it is Captained by something not necessarily human, therefore his actions were strange and really difficult to understand. The guy who runs the “Relentless” is a biologically engineered non-Human, although he was human at one time. He lost his humanity when he volunteered to become one of the first Vanguards.
A Vanguard is a person devoid of all that makes him human. He doesn’t even look like a normal human and he certainly doesn’t act like a human, yet Vanguards are tasked with the seeding of Man in far away galaxies. He does this, not because he is following some set of iron-clad orders, but because he also seems knowledge and the seeding of Man won’t interfere with his quest.
Vanguard live generations. They were made to be immortal and probably will be. The main one in this story is named Enki who once was Eric Hamilton. He and his kind have taken the names of mythical gods. Not good if you ask me. Well, the whole seeding of Man according to its book was incredibly my boring. The author made it seem as if the “Rentless” was driving a bus around dropping off children.
There was some attempt at action and adventure, but it wasn’t ever fully developed. Enki just cruised from star to star dropping off silly and idiotic colonist. We read very little about the colonists or their troubles or growth. Information about the activities aboard the World Ship Praxis were at least interesting and sometimes funny. Not so with this book.