Review "Forged in Fire" No Spoilers

[CaptainGold]

I Have not seen a thread on the book, so I thought I would start a new one. I got the book just recently, maybe even before January 1, so it might not be in circulation in many places yet.

The book IMO is not an action book, there are not a lot of battles or hand-to-hand action. But there is a lot of interesting plot turns and events.

It seems to me the book is like a finishing crew on a construction project, fixing loose ends, filling cracks in the time line, and tying Sulu up with the famous DS9 episode about the Albino the three famous Klingon captains, and Dax.

It is a very good book, but not a book for the all time top 10 list. It does slow down at times, and there is a lot of situations where as the old Chess master says "the threat is worse than its execution." And it takes a while for the execution.

The Albino has a little too much high tech in at his disposal, IMO for his station in life, and what his main goals are. But that is a quibble. the main problem I have with the book is at the end, when Sulu is called on the carpet for his actions. It just strains credulity too far to have things happen as they did.

The authors do a great job with Sulu, and the new people in his new situation, except for the above climax.

Since this is a no spoilers review I won't go into much detail, but if you have the time and cash, go buy it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

"Forged in Fire" (plus "Sword of Damocles") was my holiday reading for my trip to Brisbane over Christmas/New Year. I was able to devote whole slabs of time to journey through both novels. I found they both moved at a great page-turning rate, and the authors managed to tick almost all my boxes of expectation.

I loved Martin & Mangels' numerous salutes to TAS, and even a nod to the early Pocket novel "Pawns and Symbols". I was really, really hoping for a Kali ("TAS: The Time Trap") reference as the wife of Kor, which was first revealed in "Tears of the Singers". But everything else was so cool. Yay the glommer!

 

[JD]

There's a glommer?!

 

[Smiley]

Forged in Fire kicks off the year of Trek novels in an excellent way. The epic scope and intricate plotting remind me of the best parts of the Lost Era series. The novel makes great use of previous canon and other fiction, as the Acknowledgements page illustrates. Sulu, Kor, Kang, Koloth, Curzon Dax, and all of the guest stars all leap off the page as dynamic, three-dimensional characters, and it is easy to get swept up in their trials.

One part of me hoped that part of "Blood Oath" or its aftermath would be in the novel, but that might have been adding too much to an already stuffed book.

I hope Forged in Fire is indicative of the overall quality of Trek books this year. I give it a 9/10.

 

[Therin of Andor]

JD said:
There's a glommer?!

Spoiler: The glommer, or [i

glo'meH[/i]]Yep! Well, there was only ever one glommer, the one from "More Tribbles, More Troubles". And yes, we learn more about it in "Forged in Fire", including the spelling of its Klingon name.

 

[TonyC]

I'm currently a little more then 1/3 of the way through, I must say it's a great book, very well written so far, the characters are 'real', and I have to stop myself from reading the whole thing at one sitting. My question is, have the authors done an annotations page like others have? I can recognize a lot of the Klingon terms thru the context, but some still have me saying 'Whaat?'. Anyone know of a decent Klingon language site to possibly help with my problem?

 

[Smiley]

There's a Klingon glossary in one of the GKN books (Enemy Territory?). If it's just a few terms, you can throw them out here, and we'd be glad to help. The big ones to know are hemQuch (ridged foreheaded Klingon) and QuchHa (smooth foreheaded Klingon).

 

[KRAD]

Actually, Diplomatic Implausibility, all three Gorkon books, and the forthcoming A Burning House all have glossaries. I'm anal-retentive that way.....

 

[Trent Roman]

^ And your similarly afflicted readers thank you for it.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Admiral_Young]

I loved it...bought it on New Year's Day and read it the other night in one sitting and thought it was fantastic. I too thought the Albino had a bit too much tech but its explainable and excusable since he was raised by Orions and they seem to be able to get their hands on anything they want...thanks to their hold on the black market.

I don't remember in the DS9 episode the Klingon Trio mentioning Captain Sulu to Dax being with them in their hunt for the Albino? Was that something that was thrown in to make it more interesting?

 

[KRAD]

^ Sulu wasn't mentioned in "Blood Oath," no, but the episode itself actually was rather parsimonious with specifics -- for good reason, since it happened eight decades prior to the episode, and all four people were there and so didn't need to recount it.

Trust me, everything that happened in Forged in Fire is consistent with what happened in "Blood Oath."

 

[Andy Mangels]

Yep!

You may note that Mike and I have put a lot of TAS references into our work.

And for those looking closely, Mike and I wrote all the TAS Encyclopedia references on the StarTrek.com website, and I'm thanked in the credits of the TAS DVD set for contributing materials...

So for our fans - go read those entries!

 

[Therin of Andor]

Admiral_Young said:
I don't remember in the DS9 episode the Klingon Trio mentioning Captain Sulu to Dax being with them in their hunt for the Albino? Was that something that was thrown in to make it more interesting?

The unexpected, almost-begrudging mutual respect between Captains Kang and Sulu (ie. offscreen in ST VI) was seen in the VOY episode, "Flashback".

 

[Enterpriserules]

I really liked this book. It fills in the gaps beautifully. I found myself loving Dax and wanting more of his character after finishing the book. I wanted to thank the authors for there ENT references. I liked how they weaved in the issue of the two types of Klingons and how the main three in the story went from the type in TOS to what we see in DS9. Great work! One of the best Trek books since Ex Machina and TGTMD!

 

[ClayinCA]

I'm about halfway through and loving this book. Even the stuff with the Klingons (which is normally sort of a turn-off for me) is intriguing.

I especially love

Spoiler: Forged in Fire, obviously

the references to Hunter and Ganjitsu

Haven't seen a reference to that character in awhile, so it was a welcome delight. I'm kind of sad that I'm pretty certain to finish the book soon, actually...then it'll be over!

 

[KRAD]

If you want more of Curzon Dax, he plays a big role in my Lost Era novel The Art of the Impossible, plus there's Steven Barnes's "The Music Between the Notes" in The Lives of Dax, which details Curzon and young Ben Sisko's first meeting.

 

[Christopher]

^^Actually "The Music Between..." isn't exactly the first meeting of Sisko and Curzon, so much as their first mission together. They've already met at the start of the story, and it isn't specified how long ago, although it seems to have been fairly recent.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

ClayinCA said:
I'm about halfway through and loving this book. Even the stuff with the Klingons (which is normally sort of a turn-off for me) is intriguing.

I especially love

Spoiler: Forged in Fire, obviously

the references to Hunter and Ganjitsu

Haven't seen a reference to that character in awhile, so it was a welcome delight. I'm kind of sad that I'm pretty certain to finish the book soon, actually...then it'll be over!

Yeah, I really liked all the inter-textual references to not only filmed Trek but to other novels like Enterprise: First Adventure.

 

[Reanok]

I just wanted to thank the authors for a great book. I really am glad you included references to ENT episodes Affliction ? Divergence and TAS & Ds9 as well. I really thought the story arcs were excellent in this book.I liked Curzon Dax in this book.Also Sulu and the Excelsior officers. At first I wasn't sure I was going to like Meredith Cutler but I did and she and Sulu worked well together.

 

[Smiley]

Is Meredith Cutler supposed to be a relative or descendant of Crewman Cutler from ENT, or is it a more common last name in the 23rd century like Williams or Smith are in 21st century America?