Spoilers TTN: Fallen Gods by Michael A. Martin Review Thread

[MatthiasRussell]

Lots of human personal and place names are long, complicated, and have apostrophes. Why should alien names be any different?

I agree that these names are realistic. However, as a reader who is trying to develop a mental picture of what is going on, that flowing image is broken up when I come upon a name which takes a few seconds to figure out how to say. And I have to figure out that name so I know who is being talked about in conversation and so I can remember that person when he/she comes up again in a later chapter.

 

[Thrawn]

Just finished. This... just wasn't good. At all.

Spoiler: Fallen Gods

Martin just isn't very good at this. Comparing his ridiculous evil-shady-Tholian + evil-shady-Andorians and ridiculous technobabble to DRG3's surprisingly affecting story of racism in Raise The Dawn...it just isn't even close. The whole Andorian story in this book makes no sense. Let's say that this guy did have an experimental transporter tech he wanted to test. Can anyone think of a single reason why he would go chasing the Titan all the way the hell out here in order to test it on abducted Federation officers? For that matter, how did the Andorians get all the way the hell out here anyway? Titan is supposed to be incredibly far away from the Federation. The whole thing was just dumb. And telegraphed from the moment of the first transport, too, thus creating half a book's worth of "tension" that didn't pay off at all. Grr.

AND as JWolf pointed out, we have the same "religion screws up a society" plot Star Trek has done a million times, with no subtlety at all.

AND Martin once again fails to in any real way characterize anyone; all he can come up with is pathetic little echoes of character arcs that have already happened. Keru still hates the Borg. Everyone's a little sensitive about Vale being "poached" from the Ent-E. Ra-Havreii is still upset about his disaster with the Luna. Melora is still struggling with telepresence as opposed to real presence. Etc, etc. No one has changed, no one has grown, and the only new character (White/Blue) gets killed off in the end.

Sigh.

Cartoon-like villains, terrible writing (incredibly, both overly wordy and full of anachronistic slang at the same time), no character development, stereotypical plotting, predictable ending.

This is the kind of crap people think of when they put down tie-in novels as being lesser than original fiction. Mack, George, Beyer, Bennett, McCormack, and so many others over the past few years have shown that TrekLit can be the equal of any other sci-fi running; this kind of nonsense gives everyone a bad name.

 

[DEWLine]

They talk about the Gum Nebula, which was the region they entered way back in Orion's Hounds and appeared to stay through until Destiny. But then I thought Over a Torrent Sea sent them off to a different region of space, yet here we are back in the Gum Nebula? Or am I missing something?

Reassigned back to the Gum Nebula project due to resources freed up elsewhere, perhaps?

 

[Christopher]

They talk about the Gum Nebula, which was the region they entered way back in Orion's Hounds and appeared to stay through until Destiny. But then I thought Over a Torrent Sea sent them off to a different region of space, yet here we are back in the Gum Nebula? Or am I missing something?

I wondered about that myself, but then, I wondered why Titan left the Gum Nebula so soon in the first place (actually in Sword of Damocles). I mean, the space within the Gum Nebula is about equal in size to the Federation and all its neighbors combined, enough to spend centuries exploring.

Also, there's a jump of a whole year between Synthesis and Seize the Fire, so a lot could've happened in the interim.

 

[Ben Sisko]

Well it appears we know who the real talent was behind the martin\mangles duo back in the early 2000's. His books must sell, because they keep giving him contracts. SOmeone said above about planets in trouble because of religion. This has been a martin trope from the begining. He's the single most polictially influenced writer since Diane Carey. With books dedicated to Cindy Sheehan and now the Occupy Movement and the Al-quaeda supported rebels who murdered Ghadaffi in cold blood in the streets, this has been my last Martin purchase. With only one trek book per month I wish they'd fill up the space for more of mack and george and bring back KRAD for GOD SAKES.

 

[CommodoreNero]

As someone who is trying to finish his first novel, I will absolutely give credit where credit is due and congratulate the author on finishing his work. That being said, however, I will say this one was not my particular taste. It fell a little flat for me. The Andorians felt like cartoons, the plot was very by the numbers and I didn't care about the aliens. I wanted to know more about their progenitors, because they seemed actually interesting. All in all, not my favorite.

 

[JD]

I hate to say it since I love Titan, but based on the reactions it looks like I might be skipping this. I already own but haven't read the first Romulan War book and Seize the Fire, so I'll probably wait to make my final after I've read those, but it's not looking likely.

 

[Ronald Held]

Just started. The alien names take too long to process and determine their agenda. I wonder if Riker is happy for very long, since he got command of the Titan. Not certain about the subplot to marginalize the Andorians left in Starfleet.

 

[Mage]

I'm a bit concerned about the reactions about this being bad. I'm about 50 pages in, and sofar it's grabbing my attention more then Seize The Fire. Then again, still have 300 pages to go, and knowing Martin's work, this can still go down hill.

 

[Thrawn]

I hate to say it since I love Titan, but based on the reactions it looks like I might be skipping this. I already own but haven't read the first Romulan War book and Seize the Fire, so I'll probably wait to make my final after I've read those, but it's not looking likely.

StF gives you some neat stuff about the Gorn but the story is pretty weak (though I actually liked the kind of ridiculous, old-school sprawl of the whole thing). This is much shorter and contains nothing interesting.

The good news is that you pretty much can skip both of them. Martin doesn't really do characterization, so you won't have missed any actual story arcs or character development. Whoever writes the next one, and I'm seriously hoping it isn't Martin again, you'll be able to jump right in no problem.

I'd say skip this one for sure, and StF isn't a priority either.

 

[Julio Angel Ortiz]

Thus far, I'm thinking this is an improvement over Seize the Fire but both of these Martin novels just don't have that "wow" factor that previous entries in the series have had. I really hope they bring in a different author for the next installment.

 

[Therin of Andor]

this one clearly takes place sometime after Paths of Disharmony, which was mostly in October '82.

Yep. The Historian's Note in "Fallen Gods" suggests it falls "about two months" after the conclusion of "Seize the Fire" or "approximately two weeks after the finish" of "Paths of Disharmony", roughly November 1, 2382.

 

[JWolf]

I'm not really liking Pava all that much. I also find Ra-Havreii still going on about the Luna disaster a bit much. I thought we got past that by now. Melora and the telepresence is just silly. There's probably going to be more as I read on. I just hope that future Titan novels don't refer back to this one if it doesn't actually get better.

Why are we stepping backwards in character development instead of forwards?

I'm on page 137 of 281 and my vote is currently teetering between average and below average.

One thing I find a bit odd is the use of ... in places it seems inappropriate.

Spoiler: WTF

OK, we started off with an alien race with names that take you out of the story to try to figure out how to pronounce them. Then we get a decision from Starfleet regarding Andorian crew that harks back to WWII that does seem out of character for Starfleet. The alien presence taking over Tuvok doesn't work becuause how can you get machine code to be compatible with a Vulcan? That's just ridiculous. So why not wire up yet another machine to Tuvok's brain? After all, one machine can do it, why not another be in his head. And the machine code just left the machine it was running in and landed in White-Blue and bounced from there to Tuvok. I do not see how a computer program can run in someone's brain. There are other nits that can be picked, but these are so far the big ones.

 

[DaveR]

Between this and StF, I wish an editor would encourage Martin not to indulge in starting the story with the aliens. Frankly, if I hadn't forced myself to get through that first chapter to get to the Titan's crew, I could have set it down and not regretted it later. I might be the only one that feels that way, but I think if someone is going to start the story with a more-or-less unfamiliar alien culture instead of the familiar characters, the writing needs to be extraordinarily strong, and this, IMHO, was not.

You're not alone. I really had to fight myself not to put it down during that horrible prologue.

It got better after that, but still not impressive at all.

 

[Senjus]

I agree with the posts here about weak characterizations.

Spoiler: Fallen Gods

So there is the scene with Akaar and de la Fuego that seems like its setting up something "deep and mysterious" and then nothing. There was the mention of a mind control device that goes nowhere. Maybe it's all set up for later books but is seems kid of sloppy to me

 

[Sci]

Maybe it's all set up for later books but is seems kid of sloppy to me

It's very obviously setup for later books.

Meanwhile, even though I don't think Martin is very good at characterization, I'm glad he had the decency not to have Andor join the Typhon Pact.

 

[Thrawn]

I'm not really liking Pava all that much. I also find Ra-Havreii still going on about the Luna disaster a bit much. I thought we got past that by now. Melora and the telepresence is just silly. There's probably going to be more as I read on. I just hope that future Titan novels don't refer back to this one if it doesn't actually get better.

Why are we stepping backwards in character development instead of forwards?

This really bugged me too. We DID all that stuff already.

Honestly I think this is probably the worst 24th century novel published since some of the early A Time To novels.

 

[Sho]

^ Which are my next reading project after Vanguard ... yay.

As for Fallen Gods, it's situating itself at the bottom of the ranking table it seems ...

 

[Thrawn]

Since I suspect you already own them, this is likely fairly pointless, but for the record, if you're trying to catch up quickly, the first 6 A Time To... books are highly skippable. The books aren't awesome, very few important things occur, and those few things are carefully summarized in later books anyway. You just wanna make sure you read Mack's pair and KRAD's finale.

But I suspect you're a completist like me and that won't stop you

 

[Sho]

Yeah, readers like us just have no choice I think . But thanks for the warning.