Titan: The Red King by Andy Mangels & Michael A. Martin
Blurb:
Investigating the disappearance of a secret Romulan fleet, the U.S.S. Titan, commanded by Captain William Riker, is unexpectedly propelled more than 200,000 light-years into the Small Magellanic Cloud. One of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies, the Cloud is also home to the Neyel, the long-sundered offshoots of Terran humanity, with whom the Federation has had no contact in over eighty years.
Nearby, Riker's uncertain ally, Commander Donatra of the Romulan Warbird Valdore, rescues a young Neyel, the survivor of a mysterious cosmic upheaval that seems at times to be both unraveling and reweaving the very fabric of space...the fulfillment of an apocalyptic vision that has already claimed millions of lives. Titan's science team soon finds evidence that the ravaging of Neyel space is the work of a vast and powerful intelligence: the stirrings of a dormant consciousness that is maintaining the existence of the Small Magellanic Cloud -- and all life within it -- from one moment to the next. And if it should awaken, the consequences are unimaginable.
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My Review from 2005:
An acceptable novel.
The better part of the novel is undoubtedly the characterization part. The only major exception is Keru, who gets more and more annoying, since he gets whole chapters dedicated to him, although he is the most uninteresting and one-dimensional member of the Titan-Crew. The problem with him is, that although he gets so much prominence in the stories he basically isn’t developing / showing any new character traits. He still is a 08/15 security chief who isn’t over the loss of his mate. That in itself is not the main problem, rather that he shows the same reactions since he was introduced years before this novel and shows no signs of character growth since then. Especially for Riker Mangels and Martin did some good work in shaping out what kind of captain he is, though. One complaint I have is, that once again most of the Titan crew play only bystander roles at best. Like in the first novel only a handful of characters (and partly the same handful) are featured heavily while the others have only cameos.
The better part of the story is the Tuvok/Akaar relationship, the Neyel part is decent, but rather unoriginal. With the exception of featuring them it is a rather customary story, especially the last part of the story about the evacuation is rather generic. While the Tuvok/Akaar plot isn’t really innovative either it’s written well and does more for the Tuvok character then most other Voyager novels (maybe with the exception of Jeri Taylor’s books) combined. So I like the fact that he’s staying on board and isn’t returning to the Voyager Relaunch.
Overall a novel with some good character work, but a rather unexciting plot part.
