I'm rereading the
Titan parts of
Seize the Fire (as in, the parts that take place on the
Titan) right now to refresh my memory before reading
Fallen Gods, and I gotta say, it's as bad as I remember it.
Reading
StF feels like I'm watching a theater production, but I'm only able to use tunnel vision. My sights saccade back and forth between actors, but get nothing beyond a barely-functional view of the set, and nothing of the magnificent theater in which the play is taking place.
And the characters. Eesh. My biggest gripe is his depiction of Vale. She comes across as immature and stupid ("Let's just frag the thing!" "We can't do that, it'll set off a war with the Typhon Pact." … "We can't think of anything else, let's just frag the thing!"), in no way believable as an executive officer. She wasn't like that back in
A Time To...; she was always pragmatic but never stupid. Riker comes across as more reactionary (and therefore stupid) than he really ever has. And
starri is right about Ra-Havereii, although he hasn't had much "screen-time" in
StF.
And if I remember how it ends correctly: "Brahma-Shiva is alive!" "Hm what? Oh look at that we blew it up. What were you saying?"
Honestly? It feels like a not-so-good
Voyager episode. I don't mean that to insult
Voyager, but it just has that bored, let's-phone-it-in quality.
Now, speaking to a couple of world-building-esque strengths that Martin
has been able to repurpose successfully to other purposes:
-he's used Troi effectively so far, at least from story-telling perspectives. Her ability to differentiate the sources of the Gorn's anger (towards S'syrriax versus towards the
Titan) is unique and goes far beyond, "Captain, I'm sensing hostility."
-I think he's done a convincing job reflecting humanoid instinctive fear/disgust of reptiles onto Gorn (S'syrriax's astonishment that the mammals onboard can have compassion)
And, if I remember correctly, the Hranrarii were well done. As
Sci says, he's not a
bad author, his recent works have simply been lackluster.