[Geoff Thorne]

Mr. Bennett is right.

And, just for clarification, they were BOTH undergoing the invasive and sometimes painful procedures and, it wasn't just about Deanna's workload. Will was having serious concerns about her (or both of them) continuing in their jobs.

It was about her and their Life choice and what changes a baby might make or require in those.

You just don't know what sort of emotions will bubble up when certain events happen in life and this was one of those times for the Trois. We can be surprised by our own feelings just as much as others can.

Sometimes more.

Having talked with couples about this (not for the book, but just in life) I was surprised to find the sort of frictions existing that I had tried to put in for the Trois. And not even over baby issues but over things like career crossroads and where to live. Sometimes even benign motivations (Will's are certainly benign) can cause unpleasant or aberrant behaviors. And real friction.

On TITAN, the evidence of the rift between them was first shown by their distancing themselves from each other and by their painful private interaction with each other. Had they not solved it, had WIll not actually experienced the thing he feared most- Deanna's "death"- he might never have gotten around it. This is primal, animal stuff here. That was their Sword of Damocles and it fell. Just as Xin's did and Vale's. Each of them had a fear of the future that clouded the present. Now those fears are gone. They all went through rather than around.

Jaza's wasn't a fear (not all the time) but his knowledge of his future also informed his entire life and not always for the best. Destiny is the Sword of Damocles. In this story, anyway. In other stories it might be an actual sword.

To me, even as a reader, TITAN is not the further adventures Riker and Troi. They are just two characters out of a sea of equally interesting ones. I understand the frustration that some may have with not seeing the focus on the two (or five if you include Tuvok, Pazlar and Ogawa) characters that have appeared on screen but that was never my intent.

The three previous authors did such awesome work in several areas- making the ship unique, jacking up the adult and scifi elements- trying like all the others in the literary stable to make these books competitive with "real" scifi books, I tried to do this also. I tried to write a book that I would buy.

I'm liking the comparisons to LOST. It's not intentional on my part but it was my favorite show. I'm sorry the tech stuff was a lot for some people. I'll work on that in the future. For Trekkers, time travel stories need more of a spin to be viable and I wanted something that hadn't been seen before.

I knew when I turned it in this book wasn't going to be for everybody but I'm glad even those of you who don't LOOOOOOVE it still find things to like.

And for those who do love it, your checks are in the mail.