Titan: Sword of Damocles

[dansigal]

Is this one generally well thought of? I've been slowly making my way from the DS9 Relaunch to Destiny, and this is the first Titan book that I didn't really like.

One thing that I just can't stand is when characters who are supposed to be the smartest of the smart are dumb for no other purpose than to serve the story. It made no sense to me that the crew of the shuttle didn't even consider the possibility that the ship they saw crash on the planet was the Charon and not Titan. I mean, they know Charon is in the area, they know Charon looks exactly like Titan, they know Titan should have been too far away from the planet to have been there, and right after they have multiple discussions amongst themselves that maybe they didn't see what they thought they saw. "Maybe it's the Charon" is the first thing that I thought, and yet it never even crosses the mind of some of Starfleet's best and brightest, because it serves the plot to have them think Titan was destroyed. It just complete took me out of the book.

There were also 2-3 times where it appeared that the author switched character perspectives within the same section, without any indication that he was doing it, which was really confusing.

 

[DimesDan]

I read it years ago when it first came out, it got a bit of getting used to with the timey-whiminess but over all I enjoyed it.

 

[Thrawn]

I loved it, but I'll admit it's been long enough that I don't remember many of the details.

 

[ronny]

I loved it, but I'll admit it's been long enough that I don't remember many of the details.

Same here. I liked it a lot.

 

[Stevil2001]

My favorite Titan novel. Always disappointed Geoff Thorne's relationship with S&S didn't persist post-Palmieri.

 

[DonIago]

If I recall correctly my ability to say whether I liked the book was compromised by the fact that I found the style quite difficult and not what I was used to. In other words, while it could maybe be said that -I- didn't like it, I'd hesitate to call it an inherently bad book.

 

[Thrawn]

That was one thing that Marco did that I really appreciated - took chances on authors with really different styles, and let them have a huge amount of freedom. Even Christopher's Ex Machina was pretty amazingly different from the other books at the time, but then people like Una McCormack, DRG3, Ilsa Bick, and Thorne as well, all really unique.

Some of those authors have stuck around, certainly, but since his departure the most surprising new author's book was... Indistinguishable From Magic, maybe? Which was a breath of fresh air, to be sure, but if anything MORE stylistically like your average TV episode than the other writers working now.

 

[JD]

Sword of Damocles is my second favorite Titan book, but I can see where it's style could rub people the wrong way.

 

[Reanok]

Sword of Damocles is one of my favorite Titan Novels. It's been a while since I read the book. But I really liked the story.

 

[Paris]

I remember really liking Sword of Damocles as well, but i remember the structure being a little hard to follow at times. That was the first novel that showed the awesome Luna-class ship design. I remember being super excited to finally see what Titan loked like

 

[ToddCam]

I read it quite a while ago, and at the time I think I enjoyed it enough, but it hasn't kept well in my memory. It was hard to follow at times. I think it wasn't very good at characterization, with characters seeming to be able to do or say anything at any moment. There were a couple of scenes where it takes a while for the POV character's identity to be revealed, and I found that tedious. It was the first in the series I didn't love. This has changed with the Martin solo outings.

 

[ronny]

After thinking about the book for a bit one thing that's coming back to me is that it didn't focus so much on Riker/Troi/Tuvok, etc but on some other people on the ship. I thought it was cool seeing the ship from another perspective and I was hoping that would happen again but it hasn't do the extent that it happened in SoD.

This is probably my second or third favorite Titan novel. I really like the 2 Bennett Titan books. They are like hard science fiction that take place in the Star Trek universe where the ST references are well thought out and have a place in the story, they just aren't thrown in.

 

[j3067]

I remember this book fondly overall, but the details are kinda fuzzy at this point. Jaza was my favorite original character when Titan launched and I thought he real shined and I was ultimately satisfied with how his story line wrapped up in this one.

I sort of remember that the Charon material was a bit awkward...especially the unscrambled message at the end so I see where the OP is coming from.