Star Trek Titan: Sword of Damocles

[jhempel24]

Okay, I just finnished this, and my only thought is:

HUH??

I guess I just didn't really understand what was going on, but yet still enjoyed it, weird.

Any help on this? The whole Epilogue Prologue thing didn't make sense, but then again, this whole time travel thing always confuses me.

Also where did the title come from?

 

[Thrawn]

I don't know if this will help; I keep summaries for myself of all books in any ongoing series, so I can pick up the next book without having to reread the old ones. This was the summary I used for SoD:

The Orishans, throughout their history, have continuously had their accomplishments blown right the fuck up when a giant eye appears in the sky and causes earthquakes. Eventually, an oracle arrives that shows them how to build underground and gain high technology, and so after many generations they build an enormous set of installations that warp space around the planet in an attempt at defense. Only, as it turns out this creates a 4-dimensional tesseract that warps their planet all through time, which is what made the eye (the planet itself from this future time) in the first place. Oops. Titan is caught in the spatial disturbances, which are spreading and destabilizing space, and so they send an away team to the planet to try and put a stop to whatever’s causing the disturbances. They arrive at different points in time, and get all confused (I could write more here, but whatever), but eventually everyone makes it back to the present except Jaza who they leave in the past (and who turns out to be said oracle), and Ra-Havreii slowly collapses the tesseract, restoring the world and its civilization to normal time, no longer to be tormented by the eye. In the mean time, Riker and Troi have enormous conflict over some invasive fertility procedures they’re having to take in order to become parents (a conflict that remains unresolved), and the Caitian Hsurri, also falls for Cadet Dakal (which I'm sure will prove most interesting). We also meet Modan, a golden creature that has a normal, beautiful, civilized mode but can shift into a battle-hardened mode that extrudes spikes, and has a rational way about her that I enjoy.

I don't know if that's any clearer...

 

[jhempel24]

Thanks for that, I didn't realize the eye was the future planet. I also wasn't sure where Modan came from. Also, Did Ra-Havreii stay behind as well to help the shuttle get back to Titan? That was confusing to me as well.

 

[captcalhoun]

the title is from the Greek story of a king called Damocles who had a sword hanging over his dining table and if his enemies bad-mouthed him *shunk!*

hence Sword of Damocles hanging over one.

 

[jhempel24]

Ah, I thought it might be from the sword hanging over the bed and the king sleeping under it...I think.

But I wasn't aware of the King Damocles you were speaking...pretty cool, well, unless you didn't mind your tongue.

 

[captcalhoun]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_damocles

well, i got it wrong. read that.

 

[jhempel24]

Nice, thanks for the link!

 

[MMCL]

I was gutted when Jaza was left in the past. I really liked him!

 

[BryanSorensen]

not that i mind since i read the book but ya could wrote spoiler before ya wrote that thrawn...besides that i thought it was a very accurate summary about it.

 

[Trent Roman]

not that i mind since i read the book but ya could wrote spoiler before ya wrote that thrawn...besides that i thought it was a very accurate summary about it.

The OP asked for an explanation of the book. The answers will be inherently spoiler(-y? -esque? -ific?).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[shanejayell]

Generally speaking, if you need a explaination of the plot AFTER you read the book... it failed.

 

[Trent Roman]

^That seems a bit harsh, particularly since reactions will vary from reader to reader. While I'll conceed it isn't the most straighforward of novels, and was mildly annoyed at the closing chapter that had one guessing who was who, overall I had no problem understanding Sword of Damocles. And of course, while this shouldn't be true of Trek books, there's an entire subculture of literature out there that gets off on being difficult (damn you, Finnegans Wake).

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[rfmcdpei]

^That seems a bit harsh, particularly since reactions will vary from reader to reader. While I'll conceed it isn't the most straighforward of novels, and was mildly annoyed at the closing chapter that had one guessing who was who, overall I had no problem understanding Sword of Damocles. And of course, while this shouldn't be true of Trek books, there's an entire subculture of literature out there that gets off on being difficult (damn you, Finnegans Wake).

I found it did an effective job of communicating the sense of confusion and fear that everyone, Orishans and Titan crew alike, was feeling throughout the novel.

 

[Thrawn]

I loved untangling the language; I thought it was fantastic.

 

[T'Ressa Dax]

I found it did an effective job of communicating the sense of confusion and fear that everyone, Orishans and Titan crew alike, was feeling throughout the novel.

I loved untangling the language; I thought it was fantastic.

I have to agree with both of you. Unlike another, non-Trek SF book that had a similar style, I only had to read Sword of Damocles once to understand what was going on.
Then again, SoD was shorter and wasn't the 7th in a series. Possibly reading that other book earlier helped prepare me too.

 

[rfmcdpei]

I have to agree with both of you. Unlike another, non-Trek SF book that had a similar style, I only had to read Sword of Damocles once to understand what was going on.
Then again, SoD was shorter and wasn't the 7th in a series. Possibly reading that other book earlier helped prepare me too.

The epilogue did leave me wondering on a couple of points, but not for long. I think that one of the vignettes describing Keru connecting with kent Norellis, which is nice for both of them. (Author?)

 

[Turtletrekker]

^I hope not as I really dislike Norellis. I'd rather see Keru hook up with Torvig.

 

[Andy Mangels]

The epilogue did leave me wondering on a couple of points, but not for long. I think that one of the vignettes describing Keru connecting with kent Norellis, which is nice for both of them. (Author?)

It's not Kent. Keru made it clear he wasn't interested in Kent.
Keru is interested in someone else, and "found" him in this book, but the identity apparently hasn't been revealed yet.

Unfortunately, unless I get to write some Titan comics, it looks like it will be somebody else's reveal...

 

[DS9Continuing]

It was the transporter operator, wasn't it? Began with a B.

Although it would be kinda funny if it was Torvig. We've never seen a humanoid/non-humanoid relationship, mostly of course because we've never had a non-humanoid cast member. And Torvig does have three hands - could come in handy.

 

[Stevil2001]

Well, if you don't count Odo/Kira (since he could be a humanoid) or Cochrane/the Companion (since she reanimated a corpse), one of the best parts of the Stargazer novels was the ongoing relationship between Cole Paris and Jiterica, the latter of which was a cloud of sentient gas.