Sword of Damocles -- comments & opinions ****SPOILERS*****

[JD]

So they did get toogether then. I remembered that he liked her, I just couldn't remember if they got together.

[Geoff Thorne]

JD wrote:

---

So they did get toogether then. I remembered that he liked her, I just couldn't remember if they got together.

Well. I left it open to interpretation but, at the end, they are together. What the next writer chooses to do with that will decide what's true on that score. But, until then, they are together.

[Multimedium]

I'm a little late in reading this book. To be honest I had decided not to read anymore of the Titan books, but I decided to give the series another try.

I've got to say that I loved this book. This is my favorite Titan book so far and maybe the best Trek book that I have read in a few years.

For me this is the first Titan book that the diverse nature of the crew did not get in the way of the story. It's also the first Titan book where I have started to care about many of the crew members. The character development was more about the personalities instead of all of the surface level encyclopedic things that make them different from established Trek races. I especially like what Mr. Thorne did with Jaza, Vale and Ra-Havreii (I really liked how the musical aspect played out with Ra-Havreii).

The overall storyline was compelling, I love time-travel stories, and once the Ellington crew made it down to the planet it was just a fun adventure to figure out what was going on. I did not have any problems with the tech parts of the book. Even if I did not know exactly what was going on, I was able to grasp the concepts well enough follow the story.

This book now has me looking forward to Christopher's next Titan book, and of course Destiny. Hopefully Mr. Thorne will get another shot at Titan in the future.

[Geoff Thorne]

Multimedium wrote:

---

I'm a little late in reading this book. To be honest I had decided not to read anymore of the Titan books, but I decided to give the series another try.

I've got to say that I loved this book. This is my favorite Titan book so far and maybe the best Trek book that I have read in a few years.

For me this is the first Titan book that the diverse nature of the crew did not get in the way of the story. It's also the first Titan book where I have started to care about many of the crew members. The character development was more about the personalities instead of all of the surface level encyclopedic things that make them different from established Trek races. I especially like what Mr. Thorne did with Jaza, Vale and Ra-Havreii (I really liked how the musical aspect played out with Ra-Havreii).

The overall storyline was compelling, I love time-travel stories, and once the Ellington crew made it down to the planet it was just a fun adventure to figure out what was going on. I did not have any problems with the tech parts of the book. Even if I did not know exactly what was going on, I was able to grasp the concepts well enough follow the story.

This book now has me looking forward to Christopher's next Titan book, and of course Destiny. Hopefully Mr. Thorne will get another shot at Titan in the future.

Damn it, Mom. I told you to quit helping me.











Seriously. Thanks. I'm thrilled you liked it. I also hope to get another shot.

[lvsxy808]

Yes, the Jaza-Ra'Havreii tension definitely worked for me too. I could definitely see them reacting that way to each other, and the "song" of the Titan was a very interesting way of looking at it.

[historypeats]

Finally got around to this! (Thus concluding my two-week Titan bender - woo!)

1) The writing style was fascinating. It almost felt insane at times, as though the writing was intended to be aggressively abstract - not in terms of head-spinning scientific jargon, but in terms of sentence structure, tone, etc. I loved it - the style reflected both the chaos of the region surrounding Titan and the idea that everything is being held together - or suspended - by the thinnest of threads. The prose almost feels like it's tense enough to break, and I wanted to congratulate you, Geoff, on your ability to adapt your voice to your content so well.

2) In a similar vein, I loved the fact that the "outside narrator" perspective that's so common in Trek Lit throughout the decades (although the voice is ultimately determined by the author, and many authors establish their own "voices" quite distinctively) changes flavors with each scene, and does so in response to the players on the scene (versus, say, reflecting an author's inability to control said tone).

I love reading TrekLit, but most of it reads fairly conventionally from a mechanical standpoint - there's not a lot of Woolf-esque free-form, Gertrude-Stein-like linguistic deconstruction, etc., etc. When the narrative style shifts, it's usually in response to an alien presence (ex. the wonderful interactions between the astrocoelenterates in Christopher's Orion's Hounds), and rarely in response to characters we already "know." I'm not sure if you set out to establish yourself as a "complicated" stylist, Geoff, but I loved unwrapping the language almost as much as I enjoyed the story.

Having said all that, I'd appreciate it if interested parties could clear up a couple areas of confusion for me, either via the thread or PM:

1) I must have missed Ra-Havreii's return - I thought he had been "lost in the seas of time," sacrificing himself to preserve the Luna-class vessel responsible for dredging up so much of his tormented past. How did he get back, and when?

2) Who made up the final unnamed pair???

Congratulations on a nice debut, Geoff.

[Trent Roman]

historypeats wrote:

---

1) The writing style was fascinating. It almost felt insane at times, as though the writing was intended to be aggressively abstract - not in terms of head-spinning scientific jargon, but in terms of sentence structure, tone, etc. I loved it - the style reflected both the chaos of the region surrounding Titan and the idea that everything is being held together - or suspended - by the thinnest of threads. The prose almost feels like it's tense enough to break, and I wanted to congratulate you, Geoff, on your ability to adapt your voice to your content so well.

I noticed that too (though couldn't have phrased it nearly that well). It comes out even more when you contrast it with Christopher's style just the book before (and after). Christopher's prose is something that unfurls over a swathe of text, like an equation or a flower blooming on one of those fast-motion cameras. It's ideal for the grandness of the subject matter, the scope of his vision; it allows a kind of lofty contemplation between more focused scenes. Redjack's prose, on the other hand, is like standing in front of a firing squad armed with railguns: it comes at you fast, direct, and keeps you in a constant state of stress. Like you said, it too it well suited to the chaos and sense of continuous crisis in the book.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

[lvsxy808]

Hmm... in that light, perhaps I'll have to give the book another shake. Cuz I wasn't overly fond in the first place - maybe a second chance is in order.

[tenmei]

I struggled with the novel too, once they got down to the planet itself. I'll give it another go before OATS debuts next year.

[Turtletrekker]

I love that acronym!

[Therin of Andor]

historypeats wrote:

---

The writing style was fascinating. It almost felt insane at times, as though the writing was intended to be aggressively abstract - not in terms of head-spinning scientific jargon, but in terms of sentence structure, tone, etc. I loved it - the style reflected both the chaos of the region surrounding Titan and the idea that everything is being held together - or suspended - by the thinnest of threads.

I agree. It reminded me a little of the first 80 pages of "Challenger: Chainmail". The unusual delivery was intended to unsettle the reader and give them a taste of the alien situation the characters were experiencing.

[tenmei]

Heh, I've also recovered the two Challenger novels when I've recovered my DS9 Relaunch and NF collections! Good times!

[Geoff Thorne]

historypeats wrote:

---

Finally got around to this! (Thus concluding my two-week Titan bender - woo!)

1) The writing style was fascinating. It almost felt insane at times, as though the writing was intended to be aggressively abstract - not in terms of head-spinning scientific jargon, but in terms of sentence structure, tone, etc. I loved it - the style reflected both the chaos of the region surrounding Titan and the idea that everything is being held together - or suspended - by the thinnest of threads. The prose almost feels like it's tense enough to break, and I wanted to congratulate you, Geoff, on your ability to adapt your voice to your content so well.

2) In a similar vein, I loved the fact that the "outside narrator" perspective that's so common in Trek Lit throughout the decades (although the voice is ultimately determined by the author, and many authors establish their own "voices" quite distinctively) changes flavors with each scene, and does so in response to the players on the scene (versus, say, reflecting an author's inability to control said tone).

I love reading TrekLit, but most of it reads fairly conventionally from a mechanical standpoint - there's not a lot of Woolf-esque free-form, Gertrude-Stein-like linguistic deconstruction, etc., etc. When the narrative style shifts, it's usually in response to an alien presence (ex. the wonderful interactions between the astrocoelenterates in Christopher's Orion's Hounds), and rarely in response to characters we already "know." I'm not sure if you set out to establish yourself as a "complicated" stylist, Geoff, but I loved unwrapping the language almost as much as I enjoyed the story.

Having said all that, I'd appreciate it if interested parties could clear up a couple areas of confusion for me, either via the thread or PM:

1) I must have missed Ra-Havreii's return - I thought he had been "lost in the seas of time," sacrificing himself to preserve the Luna-class vessel responsible for dredging up so much of his tormented past. How did he get back, and when?

2) Who made up the final unnamed pair???

Congratulations on a nice debut, Geoff.

Thank-you. Sincerely. I'm not sure I deserve such high praise but I'll take it when I can get it because I'm a greedy bastard.

I wouldn't say I was going for complexity, per se. I think i just wanted to do what I could to put the reader into the story. Since it was a time travel story, that means jumping around.

Also, I think it was easier for me to focus on more of the quirks of some of the characters because the work done by M&M and CB made a lot of the getting-to-know-you stuff unnecessary.

As for the prose style, I wasn't trying to be complex or obscure. I just wanted to get at the idea that memory is a form of time travel too. Stories are mostly linear and we pretend that life is but really we're ping-ponging between Then and Now pretty much all the time. At least that's how life feels to me.

1) Ra-Havreii returns when Orisha returns to normal space. While the others had to get to TITAN to effect the proper counter-pulse to that which was being generated by the veil network, Ra-Havreii was shutting the network itself down. Once it was down, the planet returned to normal space and the distortions vanished along with the "eye." I suppose, in retrospect, it might have been interesting to show things from Ra-Havreii's POV as well but I wanted to focus on TITAN at that point.

2) I'll get back to you on that as I don't have the MS in front of me and don't recall in what order I placed the unnamed couples. However, if the last pair are who I think, several clues have been dropped about them since TAKING WING. I wanted to push the pairing but still keep the mystery going.

I am REALLY looking forward to the next two books. TITAN is my favorite ship/crew now. And not because I got to write them for a bit. I'm dying to see more of Lavena and I think we're going to to get a shot at that soon.

I pray Bralik gets some more face time. And, of course, I hope Modan gets to stick around.

[JD]

^Yeah, I agree about Bralik, she was a great character in the first couple books, but we haven't seen much of her since then.

[Christopher]

RedJack wrote:

---

I'm dying to see more of Lavena and I think we're going to to get a shot at that soon.

Have you seen the cover? We see all of Lavena.

I pray Bralik gets some more face time. And, of course, I hope Modan gets to stick around.

Yes and yes.