TTN: Fallen Gods by Michael A. Martin Review Thread (Spoilers!)

[Sci]

Senjus wrote:

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Maybe it's all set up for later books but is seems kid of sloppy to me

It's very obviously setup for later books.

Meanwhile, even though I don't think Martin is very good at characterization, I'm glad he had the decency not to have Andor join the Typhon Pact.

[Thrawn]

JWolf wrote:

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I'm not really liking Pava all that much. I also find Ra-Havreii still going on about the Luna disaster a bit much. I thought we got past that by now. Melora and the telepresence is just silly. There's probably going to be more as I read on. I just hope that future Titan novels don't refer back to this one if it doesn't actually get better.

Why are we stepping backwards in character development instead of forwards?

This really bugged me too. We DID all that stuff already.

Honestly I think this is probably the worst 24th century novel published since some of the early A Time To novels.

[Sho]

^ Which are my next reading project after Vanguard ... yay.

As for Fallen Gods, it's situating itself at the bottom of the ranking table it seems ...

[Thrawn]

Since I suspect you already own them, this is likely fairly pointless, but for the record, if you're trying to catch up quickly, the first 6 A Time To... books are highly skippable. The books aren't awesome, very few important things occur, and those few things are carefully summarized in later books anyway. You just wanna make sure you read Mack's pair and KRAD's finale.

But I suspect you're a completist like me and that won't stop you

[Sho]

Yeah, readers like us just have no choice I think . But thanks for the warning.

[JWolf]

So how can a computer program from an an alien computer be able to travel into space and end up living in a Vulcan's brain? There's no way that's possible.

[flandry84]

Yikes!Does anyone remember when Trek and Treklit were fun?
Adventures with people you would like to be friends with.
Does anyone have any affection for any of the Titan crew?
For such an initally fun and freewheeling commander like Riker,boy does he run a dull ship.

[zarkon]

I like the dinosaur

Mostly because I thought he was going to eat troi to shut her up in Destiny

That's about it.

[Thrawn]

This crew COULD be so much fun, though. There are so many interesting ideas for characters among the aliens. They just haven't been written well lately. Even Synthesis was pretty good on its own but casting everyone as really sort of paranoid and dark compounded the sense of dour unhappiness that seems to plague this series.

I'm saying, get KRAD in here. Or David McIntee. Or Kirsten Beyer, if she'd want to write anything besides Voyager. Or even David Mack, but writing a funny novel instead of a brain shattering one; he's written some of the funniest things in TrekLit (like the Kebron story in the NF story collection). Christopher is one of my very favorite writers, but he's definitely prone to soul-searching deep profound narratives, and between him and Swallow's action-oriented paranoia and Martin's humorlessness, this crew never comes off as any fun to be a part of.

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

Just finished this one. Sigh.

I voted average, because it is so painfully average. I agree with the previous comments here: characterization has taken a step backwards (why is Ra-Havreii still fretting about the Luna? STILL?). Pava didn't impress me as a character. I didn't care for how the Andorians were portrayed; for a species that were a founding member of the Federation and its core ideals, they sort of dropped all of that pretty fast, didn't they? And I get that they are facing extinction, but there's not one ounce of emotional depth from the Therin's crew... I kept waiting for their commander to start laughing with a maniacal "MUHAHAHAHAHA!".

The Ta'ithan species were also cardboard representations, like the Hranrar species from Seize the Fire. The world-building that Titan has been known for has been extremely watered down over these past two novels (which is a shame, considering their excellent predecessor, Synthesis). Oh, and SecondGen White-Blue, whom I really liked, sacrifices himself off-screen with just Tuvok to fill in the details. WTF?

I'll say this: Fallen Gods was better than Seize the Fire, but only just. It's not an awful novel (even if the prologue is rough to get through), and it provides some interesting developments in the wake of the ongoing Typhon Pact storyline. Riker provides an interesting solution to the Andorian crew situation (which was one of the better pieces of the novel, since the solution perfectly aligns with his character). But the prose is flat and at times stilted.

The "wow factor" hasn't been there these past two novels. I hope that we get a different writer for the next Titan novel. One of TrekLit's best series has gone into a slump and I hope the editor makes moves to correct it.

[JD]

I have to admit, I will be curious to see if Martin sticks around solo. Most of the reactions to his stuff on here has been about like the ones here, and none of his solo stuff has a higher rating than 3 stars out of 5 on Amazon.

[Edit_XYZ]

Sci wrote:

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It's very obviously setup for later books.

Meanwhile, even though I don't think Martin is very good at characterization, I'm glad he had the decency not to have Andor join the Typhon Pact.

So - it seems the current andorian development will be excused by them being under heavy tholian mind-control.

Better than what was painted so far in the books - which was the andorians having a moral inversion 'just because'. Unfortunately, this 'better' is not saying much:

I liked the andorian development in star trek: Enterprise.
But their showing in the 'typhon pact' line is them being either moustache-twisting villains or people with such a coherence/logic in thought that they developing interstellar travel makes the pakled similar achievement credible - and now, them being mere puppets, controlled by their betters.

And there's also the fact that mind control for shock value - and for eventual redemption/reset - is heavily used as a troupe in SF - and, as such, not engrossing.
The DS9 relaunch itself used the exact same troupe (with the "difference" of having the applied phlebotinum be parasites as opposed to tholian technology).

[Thrawn]

It's spelled "trope".

[Edit_XYZ]

Thrawn wrote:

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It's spelled "trope".

'Grammar nazi' style hair-splitting. Is this really all you could find?
My arguments must be more compelling than I thought.

[Sho]

^ Damn, your original version (which I got in the notification email) read "semantic hairsplitting", and I was not going to be able to resist the sweet irony of pointing out that semantics is about meaning rather than orthography. Then again, grammar isn't about orthography either. But it lacks punch now!