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

[JWolf]

A lot of the writing is disjointed. You get writing that makes little sense in the way it's phrased. Also, Martin is using a lot of big words to show off his vocabulary when shorter simpler words would do. There are sentences that read odd and drop you out of the story to go WTF. Also, some of the characters seem to be going backwards in character development. Things we should have gotten past are still issue(s) for them.

I've not yet finished and am a little over half done. But I'm not expecting the writing to get much better if it does get any better.

[Kertrats47]

JWolf wrote:

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Also, some of the characters seem to be going backwards in character development. Things we should have gotten past are still issue(s) for them.

This was one of the biggest issues for me. The whole thing with Xin still broken up about the Luna seemed really out of place. I can understand him not yet being over it, as it was a pretty big deal, but his whining about it again had no place in this novel. It didn't really relate to what was going on to any significant degree. I would love it if this particular bit of his character were either dropped or advanced in some way. I'm getting tired of the holding pattern, and the situation simply being mentioned whenever the author feels the prose isn't angsty enough.

[starri]

Is is harsh of me to say that if the next TTN outing is a solo Martin project, I'm just going to skip it?

TrekLit is my leisure reading, and if I have a spare afternoon to kill, I will often read through a favorite novel, but frankly, I have no desire to ever pick up Seize the Fire or Fallen Gods ever again. Contrast to, say, just about all the VGD books, which I've read at least three times, if not more.

[Markonian]

Titan is my favourite TrekLit series. I liked that several crewmembers got decent screen time.

The Luna-issue from Ra-Havreii also struck me as odd - I had hoped he was over it by now.

I liked the Andorian ship, her commander not so much. He was the villain but had no likeable qualities. Pava and her six colleagues redeemed the Andorians in my eyes somewhat. I found the species substantially less likeable after Typhon Pact.

I'm also waiting when the Andorians finally join the Typhon Pact and the Talarians the Khitomer Alliance.

[Ronald Held]

about half way through. Andor has only a few military vessels, and sent one that far out to collect 7 Andorians from Titan?

[Sci]

Ronald Held wrote:

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about half way through. Andor has only a few military vessels, and sent one that far out to collect 7 Andorians from Titan?

That's what Commander Zhrar claimed, but we don't actually know this. Really, we have no idea who he's working for, and only his word to back up his assertion that he's working for the Andorian government. We won't really know what's going on until the next book.

[Markonian]

Sci wrote:

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We won't really know what's going on until the next book.

By the way, do we have a clue which upcoming book will deal with the Andorians again?

[Snaploud]

Ronald Held wrote:

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about half way through. Andor has only a few military vessels, and sent one that far out to collect 7 Andorians from Titan?

It's possible that these Andorians were chosen for their familiarity with a slipstream-capable starship. It also makes sense from a tactical perspective to target a vessel isolated from starfleet support.

[Sci]

Markonian wrote:

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By the way, do we have a clue which upcoming book will deal with the Andorians again?

Well, considering that Fallen Gods ends on a cliffhanger, I think it's safe to say that the next Titan novel will focus on them...

[Christopher]

Snaploud wrote:

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It's possible that these Andorians were chosen for their familiarity with a slipstream-capable starship.

Unless something big has changed since I last looked, Titan isn't slipstream-capable.

[DEWLine]

Smelling subspace shortcuts in play here...

[MatthiasRussell]

Christopher wrote:

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In IDW's Alien Spotlight: Andorians, set between TNG and Generations, it was established that the Andorians had been fairly detached from the rest of the Federation for a while and that there were strong isolationist/xenophobic factions on Andor(ia). This was presumably by way of explaining why we didn't see Andorians in the 24th-century shows. The story was referenced in Paths of Disharmony, so it counts as part of the novel continuity. And it seems reasonable to surmise that their isolation in the comic would be related to their reproductive crisis in the novels.

I thought that the IDW comics didn't fit into the novel continuity. If the Alien Spotlight comics shed light on this continuity and even fit into it, why doesn't Countdown?

[Sho]

^ Because in this case, the novels chose to acknowledge the comic explicitly?

[Markonian]

MatthiasRussell wrote:

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I thought that the IDW comics didn't fit into the novel continuity. If the Alien Spotlight comics shed light on this continuity and even fit into it, why doesn't Countdown?

Firstly, the novels are not yet up to speed - the events of Countdown are still several years away.

Secondly, some novels include references that seem to prepare for Countdown, e.g.
- reunification of RSE
- La Forge is a Commander again.
- Worf's mishap during the Dominion War will no longer prevent his promotion (Picard weighed in).
- Picard considers retirement and ambassadorship to Vulcan.

[Christopher]

MatthiasRussell wrote:

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I thought that the IDW comics didn't fit into the novel continuity. If the Alien Spotlight comics shed light on this continuity and even fit into it, why doesn't Countdown?

Because IDW's comics do not represent a single continuity. Some of them contradict each other; for instance, D. C. Fontana's Year Four: The Enterprise Experiment and John Byrne's Romulans miniseries present contradictory depictions of elements of the late 5-year-mission era. So it has to be treated case-by-case. Some of the Alien Spotlight comics fit the novel continuity or have been referenced by it, but a few conflict with it.