TP: Seize the Fire by Michael A. Martin Review Thread (Spoilers!)
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ProtoAvatar
Fleet Captain
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Let this be clear, mr troll:
You speak for yourself. Not for me, not for someone else.
You most likely think you appear cool or whatever
.
You are only embarassing yourself in front of us.
Let this be clear, mr troll:
You speak for yourself. Not for me, not for someone else.
You most likely think you appear cool or whatever
. You are only embarassing yourself in front of us.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Ummmmmmm, how about..... mabye...... NO. I've been more than happy with the books that have come since Destiny (I do admit I haven't read Seize the Fire yet, so that may change), but even if it does it won't be enough make me change my mind about my opinion of the STL line or the authors who work on it.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Almost finished with the book.
I am neither a writer or editor, but would expect the Typhoon Pact not to last very long, maybe within a few years.
Almost finished with the book.
I am neither a writer or editor, but would expect the Typhoon Pact not to last very long, maybe within a few years.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
kaysea, you need to stop with this sort of thing. While you don't have to "be all smiles and sunshine" you do need to try to contribute to the board in a non-trollish fashion. Negative critique is one thing, this is another. Next time a formal infraction may be given.
Steve Roby and ProtoAvatar, calling someone a troll is itself also trolling, please stop. Next time please use the notify mod function and let Rosalind or myself handle it.
Thanks.
kaysea, you need to stop with this sort of thing. While you don't have to "be all smiles and sunshine" you do need to try to contribute to the board in a non-trollish fashion. Negative critique is one thing, this is another. Next time a formal infraction may be given.
Steve Roby and ProtoAvatar, calling someone a troll is itself also trolling, please stop. Next time please use the notify mod function and let Rosalind or myself handle it.
Thanks.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Rosebud is really Keyser Soze, and he flies away with Viktor Laszlo at the end after discovering he's actually a ghost. Oh, and the butler did it.
Rosebud is really Keyser Soze, and he flies away with Viktor Laszlo at the end after discovering he's actually a ghost. Oh, and the butler did it.
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
I'm about halfway through ZSG and have StF sitting on the top of the stack to be read next and I find myself looking at other books to read instead. I'll probably read StF or at least start it but some of the reviews have really dampened my enthusiasm.
I'm about halfway through ZSG and have StF sitting on the top of the stack to be read next and I find myself looking at other books to read instead. I'll probably read StF or at least start it but some of the reviews have really dampened my enthusiasm.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Same here. I'm a huge Titan fan, and I was really looking forward to this one, but I'm quickly losing enthusiasm. Usually I still try to tell myself that it could still be good, I know SZG got alot of mixed reviews, but so far I've been liking it. Sadly in the case the reviews are so overwhelmingly negative that it's really killing my anticipation. I'm still gonna read it, since I already payed for it, but that's pretty much the only reason now.
Just out of curiosity, are there any major events in the story that would have a big impact on future books?
Same here. I'm a huge Titan fan, and I was really looking forward to this one, but I'm quickly losing enthusiasm. Usually I still try to tell myself that it could still be good, I know SZG got alot of mixed reviews, but so far I've been liking it. Sadly in the case the reviews are so overwhelmingly negative that it's really killing my anticipation. I'm still gonna read it, since I already payed for it, but that's pretty much the only reason now.
Just out of curiosity, are there any major events in the story that would have a big impact on future books?
kkozoriz1
Fleet Captain
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Big Titan fan here too. Christopher's done some great work with that series. It's too bad it's hit this bump. The way the publishing world is these days any drop off in sales could spell the end of a series. Ìd hate for `Titan to go the way of Gorkon and SCE.
Big Titan fan here too. Christopher's done some great work with that series. It's too bad it's hit this bump. The way the publishing world is these days any drop off in sales could spell the end of a series. Ìd hate for `Titan to go the way of Gorkon and SCE.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Just finished 'Seize the Fire' and must admit to having found it a bit of a struggle as well. I've been wondering over the weekend and think I've managed to put my my finger on why (for me), it just doesn't seem to resonate.
It doesn't feel principally like a Titan story. To me the Gorn Hegemony was understandably the principle storyline and that they shoehorned 'Starship XXXX' into the story to give it a necessary familiarity.
Now when I look at 'Zero Sum Game' I realise I'm seeing exactly the same thing – The Breen story took priority and they dropped Bashir/Ezri/Aventine into the story at the last minute. I missed it at the time (possibly because I find the whole Ezri/Aventine thing a little dull) but If I look at it now, I firmly believe that you could have done a wholesale 'flip' of the Titan/Aventine appearances between the two novels and the story itself wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the outcome. Both appearances from a Starfleet crew appear tacked on to the main stories – 'Tell us more about race XYZ in the Typhon Pact.”
Don't get me wrong, I found exploration of both the Breen and the Gorn hierachy's, back-stories and culture fascinating and well implemented. What struggled to resonate for me was the Starfleet parts. As discussed up-thread, Riker seemed 'off', Vale wise-cracked, Ree reminded everyone he looked like a dinosaur, Keru was beardy etc etc. It was a bit 'paint-by-number Titan.'
Now I don't think I noticed this previously in ZSG, because (due to my own preferences) I'm just not that 'into' Ezri as a Captain and wouldn't necessarily notice if her character seemed 'off' (principally that's my gripe with the character as a whole in the first place - she's all over the place!). In Riker and Titan as a whole however, it stood out like a sore thumb.
I might re-read ZSG again and see where I could/would have swapped over crews/ships and whether there would be any definable difference.
Just finished 'Seize the Fire' and must admit to having found it a bit of a struggle as well. I've been wondering over the weekend and think I've managed to put my my finger on why (for me), it just doesn't seem to resonate.
It doesn't feel principally like a Titan story. To me the Gorn Hegemony was understandably the principle storyline and that they shoehorned 'Starship XXXX' into the story to give it a necessary familiarity.
Now when I look at 'Zero Sum Game' I realise I'm seeing exactly the same thing – The Breen story took priority and they dropped Bashir/Ezri/Aventine into the story at the last minute. I missed it at the time (possibly because I find the whole Ezri/Aventine thing a little dull) but If I look at it now, I firmly believe that you could have done a wholesale 'flip' of the Titan/Aventine appearances between the two novels and the story itself wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference to the outcome. Both appearances from a Starfleet crew appear tacked on to the main stories – 'Tell us more about race XYZ in the Typhon Pact.”
Don't get me wrong, I found exploration of both the Breen and the Gorn hierachy's, back-stories and culture fascinating and well implemented. What struggled to resonate for me was the Starfleet parts. As discussed up-thread, Riker seemed 'off', Vale wise-cracked, Ree reminded everyone he looked like a dinosaur, Keru was beardy etc etc. It was a bit 'paint-by-number Titan.'
Now I don't think I noticed this previously in ZSG, because (due to my own preferences) I'm just not that 'into' Ezri as a Captain and wouldn't necessarily notice if her character seemed 'off' (principally that's my gripe with the character as a whole in the first place - she's all over the place!). In Riker and Titan as a whole however, it stood out like a sore thumb.
I might re-read ZSG again and see where I could/would have swapped over crews/ships and whether there would be any definable difference.
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Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Given the downright negative reviews of Seize the Fire, it's making me afraid to even buy the book. I have to ask - without giving anything away, is there anything important that happens in this book to the Titan crew? Could a Titan fan skip this novel completely without missing anything important? Part of me thinks I'd be better off just passing on this novel so that I don't waste my hard-earned money.
Given the downright negative reviews of Seize the Fire, it's making me afraid to even buy the book. I have to ask - without giving anything away, is there anything important that happens in this book to the Titan crew? Could a Titan fan skip this novel completely without missing anything important? Part of me thinks I'd be better off just passing on this novel so that I don't waste my hard-earned money.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Finished and did not see the book as that good. maybe because it is concentraiting on TP members?
Finished and did not see the book as that good. maybe because it is concentraiting on TP members?
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Depends on how the impact of the terraforming tech that was downloaded into certain Titan crew members is handled in future books.
Seems like this was purposely written as an open-ended book that way. The fact that we didn't get to see exactly WHO is responsible for creating the terraforming probe leads me to suspect we'll revisit this story line in future books.
Depends on how the impact of the terraforming tech that was downloaded into certain Titan crew members is handled in future books.
Seems like this was purposely written as an open-ended book that way. The fact that we didn't get to see exactly WHO is responsible for creating the terraforming probe leads me to suspect we'll revisit this story line in future books.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Although it looks like I probably enjoyed this book more than a lot of people posting here, I didn't have to struggle to finish, there were still plenty of problems. I know Martin was one of the co-creators of the series but I didn't get a feel for the Titan crew and it just seemed like a lot of conversations that didn't seem like natural conversations. They came across like people telling each other things they should know and it was just a cheap way of imparting information to the reader.
The plot wasn't that engaging for me and one of the solutions with the ecosculpture was a big deux ex machina.
On the plus side, I liked the Gorn stuff a lot more than the Titan parts. Hmmm, that makes a pattern with ZSG and StF, the alien sections are more interesting than our heroes.
And I liked the name "ecosculpture".
I rated it below average. Just too many issues and I don't know why this story took 150 pages more to tell than ZSG.
Although it looks like I probably enjoyed this book more than a lot of people posting here, I didn't have to struggle to finish, there were still plenty of problems. I know Martin was one of the co-creators of the series but I didn't get a feel for the Titan crew and it just seemed like a lot of conversations that didn't seem like natural conversations. They came across like people telling each other things they should know and it was just a cheap way of imparting information to the reader.
The plot wasn't that engaging for me and one of the solutions with the ecosculpture was a big deux ex machina.
On the plus side, I liked the Gorn stuff a lot more than the Titan parts. Hmmm, that makes a pattern with ZSG and StF, the alien sections are more interesting than our heroes.
And I liked the name "ecosculpture".
I rated it below average. Just too many issues and I don't know why this story took 150 pages more to tell than ZSG.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Well I finished it but wow it was hard work.
It felt like there was a great story here involving the Gorn using the Ecosculpter and the Titan trying to stop them before the Typhon Pact fleet arrived - it could have dealt with the Gorn's fertility problems - maybe have Titan try to figure out another way of helping them in an attempt to get them to leave the Pact. Instead it got swamped by Prime Directive issues, the other Gorn vessel, the senseless trip to the planet & then from pretty much nowhere the Ecosculpter being sentient! It's like we can't have a Titan book without some big alien intelligence somewhere along the line. Oh and Tuvok's terraforming issues - what the hell was that!
The Prime Directive stuff was painful and really when facing an enemy fleet and the possible destruction of a planet do you really send your two senior officers down to collect data - I mean really! Then again this did seem to be the book of stupid Riker decisions all in all.
Oh and this can be a problem in every Titan book but was really obvious here - there are so many characters to introduce that sometimes it overwhelms the story - for the first 100 or so pages it felt like we just got character descriptions. This reached its nadir in Troi dropping off Natasha having a chat with T'pel and then also acknowledging the other kids in the nursery by name - why do it.
Well I finished it but wow it was hard work.
It felt like there was a great story here involving the Gorn using the Ecosculpter and the Titan trying to stop them before the Typhon Pact fleet arrived - it could have dealt with the Gorn's fertility problems - maybe have Titan try to figure out another way of helping them in an attempt to get them to leave the Pact. Instead it got swamped by Prime Directive issues, the other Gorn vessel, the senseless trip to the planet & then from pretty much nowhere the Ecosculpter being sentient! It's like we can't have a Titan book without some big alien intelligence somewhere along the line. Oh and Tuvok's terraforming issues - what the hell was that!
The Prime Directive stuff was painful and really when facing an enemy fleet and the possible destruction of a planet do you really send your two senior officers down to collect data - I mean really! Then again this did seem to be the book of stupid Riker decisions all in all.
Oh and this can be a problem in every Titan book but was really obvious here - there are so many characters to introduce that sometimes it overwhelms the story - for the first 100 or so pages it felt like we just got character descriptions. This reached its nadir in Troi dropping off Natasha having a chat with T'pel and then also acknowledging the other kids in the nursery by name - why do it.
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
You know something?
I have pretty high standards. I haven't liked much this year. Zero Sum Game was a huge disappointment. And I even made a whole separate thread complaining about Riker in this book, just based on being irritated with the first 2/3 of it.
But now that I've actually finished this book, I'm going to say something that I don't think anyone else in here has actually said. I...actually...mostly liked it.
Don't get me wrong - this book exemplified a number of long-running problems with Titan, Trek, and Treklit in spades. To wit:
1) Prime Directive nonsense - totally absurd. "We have to stand by and watch a society disappear because we can't interfere with them" obviously defeats the purpose of the law in the first place. This is stupid.
2) Riker being mopey. Made a whole thread about it. Irritating as hell.
3) Martin's tendency to rely overmuch on his own backstories and previous books. Red King wasn't anything about Titan at all, but rather a bunch of leftover stories from his work on Excelsior, and Tuvok's whole thing in this novel read as more of the same. Didn't have anything to do with anything else in the whole novel.
4) Every damn Titan book is about some planet or other about to be wiped from existence. There's plenty of interesting shit in the universe that isn't mega-deadly.
5) It did the same thing Zero Sum Game did, where there was actually only one interesting development, and it was dropped as a cliffhanger, otherwise changing nothing and doing nothing to advance any ongoing plotlines or character arcs.
6) And most importantly: can we finally get off the "we're all prejudiced / diversity is good" high horse with this series? Good freaking lord. Martin has just about as shallow an understanding of multicultural diversity as can possibly be expressed in a long-running series about a ship full of ACTUAL ALIENS. "Ohh, my main characters are reptiles, eh? Well let's have them be terrified of mammals! Won't that be some interesting role reversal! I can mine that for at least 7 internal Rikermonologues about prejudice! HAHA!" Shut up.
.......BUT. After all that. Yes: I actually liked it. Why?
Well, for everyone who's been clamoring lately for more books like the numbered novels, I think you've gotten your wish. This to me, by about the halfway point, had become a pretty charming nostalgia trip back to the days of numbered TNG novels, when every planet had to be saved, every story was a Prime Directive problem, there could be actual EVIL RADIATION-SCARRED LIZARD MONSTERS as enemies without a sense of irony, and the reset button had to be pressed at the end. I'm not so sure if I was laughing with or laughing at the story, but by the end, I was definitely laughing.
It felt like what Treklit used to be like when I was a kid, before Marco took it and turned it into an Actual Goddamn Story Worth Telling. And, obviously, I much prefer the Actual Goddamn Story Worth Telling. For sure. But so many of the books this year have just been kind of pathetic in general, that having this sort of sprawling, action-filled novel that kept piling on the conflicts, every single conflict being ripped straight out of the Numbered Novel Cliche Generator...felt kind of fun.
Being honest, the TOS novels early in the year looked like they were trying to be numbered novels but really weren't. Inception and Unspoken Truth filled in gaps, and Children Of Kings was this weird sort of alternate universe thing. This one is the first novel we've gotten since...honestly, maybe since the A Time To... novels that really felt like an old-school Giant TNG Novel. And even the A Time To... novels weren't great.
So, you know, all in all, it's maybe a 7/10 at best, but I think I enjoyed it way more than everyone else I've seen in here.
Shrug.
I'm still hoping for something actually genuinely kickass from DRG3 next week, though. We'll see...
You know something?
I have pretty high standards. I haven't liked much this year. Zero Sum Game was a huge disappointment. And I even made a whole separate thread complaining about Riker in this book, just based on being irritated with the first 2/3 of it.
But now that I've actually finished this book, I'm going to say something that I don't think anyone else in here has actually said. I...actually...mostly liked it.
Don't get me wrong - this book exemplified a number of long-running problems with Titan, Trek, and Treklit in spades. To wit:
1) Prime Directive nonsense - totally absurd. "We have to stand by and watch a society disappear because we can't interfere with them" obviously defeats the purpose of the law in the first place. This is stupid.
2) Riker being mopey. Made a whole thread about it. Irritating as hell.
3) Martin's tendency to rely overmuch on his own backstories and previous books. Red King wasn't anything about Titan at all, but rather a bunch of leftover stories from his work on Excelsior, and Tuvok's whole thing in this novel read as more of the same. Didn't have anything to do with anything else in the whole novel.
4) Every damn Titan book is about some planet or other about to be wiped from existence. There's plenty of interesting shit in the universe that isn't mega-deadly.
5) It did the same thing Zero Sum Game did, where there was actually only one interesting development, and it was dropped as a cliffhanger, otherwise changing nothing and doing nothing to advance any ongoing plotlines or character arcs.
6) And most importantly: can we finally get off the "we're all prejudiced / diversity is good" high horse with this series? Good freaking lord. Martin has just about as shallow an understanding of multicultural diversity as can possibly be expressed in a long-running series about a ship full of ACTUAL ALIENS. "Ohh, my main characters are reptiles, eh? Well let's have them be terrified of mammals! Won't that be some interesting role reversal! I can mine that for at least 7 internal Rikermonologues about prejudice! HAHA!" Shut up.
.......BUT. After all that. Yes: I actually liked it. Why?
Well, for everyone who's been clamoring lately for more books like the numbered novels, I think you've gotten your wish. This to me, by about the halfway point, had become a pretty charming nostalgia trip back to the days of numbered TNG novels, when every planet had to be saved, every story was a Prime Directive problem, there could be actual EVIL RADIATION-SCARRED LIZARD MONSTERS as enemies without a sense of irony, and the reset button had to be pressed at the end. I'm not so sure if I was laughing with or laughing at the story, but by the end, I was definitely laughing.
It felt like what Treklit used to be like when I was a kid, before Marco took it and turned it into an Actual Goddamn Story Worth Telling. And, obviously, I much prefer the Actual Goddamn Story Worth Telling. For sure. But so many of the books this year have just been kind of pathetic in general, that having this sort of sprawling, action-filled novel that kept piling on the conflicts, every single conflict being ripped straight out of the Numbered Novel Cliche Generator...felt kind of fun.
Being honest, the TOS novels early in the year looked like they were trying to be numbered novels but really weren't. Inception and Unspoken Truth filled in gaps, and Children Of Kings was this weird sort of alternate universe thing. This one is the first novel we've gotten since...honestly, maybe since the A Time To... novels that really felt like an old-school Giant TNG Novel. And even the A Time To... novels weren't great.
So, you know, all in all, it's maybe a 7/10 at best, but I think I enjoyed it way more than everyone else I've seen in here.
Shrug.
I'm still hoping for something actually genuinely kickass from DRG3 next week, though. We'll see...
Re: Typhon Pact: Seize The Fire review thread
Is that really a problem endemic to Titan, though? At least in my novels, Riker and the crew have taken a rather liberal approach to the Prime Directive. Indeed, in Orion's Hounds, Riker explicitly said that he was no longer willing to tolerate seeing the PD used as an excuse for doing nothing when others were in need, and in Over a Torrent Sea, Lavena challenged the use of warp technology as the accepted threshold for contact. If they're taking a more conservative approach in StF, then something must've changed in the interim. Or else it's just a difference of authorial interpretation. I freely admit that I was shading Riker and Troi's views of the PD to reflect my own even if it differed from how they were portrayed in the show.
Well, the threat in Over a Torrent Sea, while on a planetary scale, was not existential. It threatened to disrupt the natives' way of life and cause an ecological crisis which, while dangerous in the near term, would eventually stabilize over ensuing generations.
And of course Taking Wing was about Romulan political machinations. I don't recall any planetary-level threats there.
Is that really a problem endemic to Titan, though? At least in my novels, Riker and the crew have taken a rather liberal approach to the Prime Directive. Indeed, in Orion's Hounds, Riker explicitly said that he was no longer willing to tolerate seeing the PD used as an excuse for doing nothing when others were in need, and in Over a Torrent Sea, Lavena challenged the use of warp technology as the accepted threshold for contact. If they're taking a more conservative approach in StF, then something must've changed in the interim. Or else it's just a difference of authorial interpretation. I freely admit that I was shading Riker and Troi's views of the PD to reflect my own even if it differed from how they were portrayed in the show.
Well, the threat in Over a Torrent Sea, while on a planetary scale, was not existential. It threatened to disrupt the natives' way of life and cause an ecological crisis which, while dangerous in the near term, would eventually stabilize over ensuing generations.
And of course Taking Wing was about Romulan political machinations. I don't recall any planetary-level threats there.
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