I've been having a hard time getting into the Star Trek: Titan series for a while. The series tries to do too much by having so many different and unique characters. One character will show up, and the author will go through the trouble of trying to give them personality, and in a couple pages you never see them mentioned again – nor do they really contribute to the overall of the story. It's happened repeatedly in the series, and I always wonder to what end do they bother with these characters apart from making the Titan sound diverse.
The latest Titan book, Fallen Gods by Michael A Martin, takes that diversity thing, but pares down a lot of the random characters. It's the first Titan book that I've actually enjoyed.
There are a lot of characters still featured in this story, but each one of them contributes to the overall plot. And considering there were several different plot lines going on in this book, I appreciated that no time was wasted on unnecessary characters.
I really enjoyed the two dilemmas faced by Riker. The first was trying to find the terraforming tech. Though he doesn't stop to ponder this too much, it's still the forefront of the story. There's no thoughts of what other technology the Ta'ith might have that could assist the Federation or the possible consequences of obtaining the tech, just the want for the terraforming devices.
The other is the obvious dilemma surrounding sending the Andorian crew back to Federation space. Though an Andorian vessel shows up to bully the Captain into doing it, Riker thoughts are always making sure the wishes of his own crew are respected. He steps very gently on this situation. Because this mirrors the various internments that happened in Earth history, it might have been interesting to see some of the non-Andorian crew suspicious of the Andorians and how Riker reacts to that (then again, the non-Andorian sentiment is addressed in Plagues of Night and Seize the Dawn).
One of the things I didn't enjoy was the multiple timelines surrounding Lieutenant Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqaba on the Andorian ship. I know that there was multiple copies of her running around, but I felt as though the timelines for them didn't flow. In one they said it was six hours later, yet that didn't seem to match up with the rest of the story.
This has been my favourite Titan book to date. If you're looking for the lighter side of Trek I'd recommend this series, though start with book one!
The latest Titan book, Fallen Gods by Michael A Martin, takes that diversity thing, but pares down a lot of the random characters. It's the first Titan book that I've actually enjoyed.
There are a lot of characters still featured in this story, but each one of them contributes to the overall plot. And considering there were several different plot lines going on in this book, I appreciated that no time was wasted on unnecessary characters.
I really enjoyed the two dilemmas faced by Riker. The first was trying to find the terraforming tech. Though he doesn't stop to ponder this too much, it's still the forefront of the story. There's no thoughts of what other technology the Ta'ith might have that could assist the Federation or the possible consequences of obtaining the tech, just the want for the terraforming devices.
The other is the obvious dilemma surrounding sending the Andorian crew back to Federation space. Though an Andorian vessel shows up to bully the Captain into doing it, Riker thoughts are always making sure the wishes of his own crew are respected. He steps very gently on this situation. Because this mirrors the various internments that happened in Earth history, it might have been interesting to see some of the non-Andorian crew suspicious of the Andorians and how Riker reacts to that (then again, the non-Andorian sentiment is addressed in Plagues of Night and Seize the Dawn).
One of the things I didn't enjoy was the multiple timelines surrounding Lieutenant Pava Ek'Noor sh'Aqaba on the Andorian ship. I know that there was multiple copies of her running around, but I felt as though the timelines for them didn't flow. In one they said it was six hours later, yet that didn't seem to match up with the rest of the story.
This has been my favourite Titan book to date. If you're looking for the lighter side of Trek I'd recommend this series, though start with book one!