Star Trek Titan : The Sword of Damocles (review) December 26, 2007
Posted by showmescifi in scifi.Tags: Books, Riker, Sci Fi, science fiction, sciencefiction, scifi, Star Trek Books, star trek titan, startrek, tar trek, titan
trackback
If you think it’s been awhile since you’ve since a Star Trek Titan book review on ShowMeSciFi.com you’d be right. The last time a new Star Trek Titan book came out was late 2005. We reviewed the three previous Star Trek Titan books (Taking Wing, The Red King and Orion’s Hounds ) in 2006.
This latest book, the fourth in the series was one we had been waiting for, for some time…Titan is the series that chronicles the continuing adventures of Captain Wil Riker and his Luna class star ship Titan on deep space exploration missions. The crew is mostly non-human which makes for a real interesting mix.
Unfortunately The Sword of Damocles isn’t a good book at all as it doesn’t take advantage of the Titan or her diverse crew (including Riker) well at all. Much of the book is focussed on one character a Bajoran and an poorly constructed time paradox plot.
While time related stories are often difficult to navigate, the publisher has made this one infinately more difficult to navigate by not properly indicating scene changes/time changes as chapter or section headings. It’s a publishing 101 issue and it significantly detracts from this work.
The author – Geoffrey Thorne is likely the worst Star Trek author we have ever read as he makes little sense and does little to connect with the Titan canon that has been developing over the course of the previous four books.
Of the four books thus far, this one was by far and away the worst of the bunch and one of the least readable Star Trek books we’ve seen in years.
Titan is a valuable and excellent concept. We can only hope that the power that be get their act together and publish this title more often and with better authors.
Show Me SciFi 
WOW. Don’t mince words. Just come out and say what you feel.
Seriously, while I don’t believe you are required to like any fictional work, I also think it would be good if you described a book accurately even when giving it a pass.
Poorly constructed time paradox? What was that? Please describe it. Not properly indicating scene/chapter/section headings? Really? That’s the first I’ve heard of it. Not making use of TITAN’s diversity? Several new species and a new civilization were introduced in this book. At least four were examined closely. I would caution anyone who reads this review or trusts this reviewer to actually check the book out for themselves as it bears no resemblance whatsoever to what’s been described here. Literally, no resemblance.
Well. The reviewer got the title right and my name and the fact that Will Riker is TITAN’s captain. Beyond that, this is either a willfully false assessment of the book or somebody didn’t understand what he or she was reading. Oh, and I spend considerable time on a Bajoran officer. Yes.
Based on the extremely thin descriptions here, it seems entirely likely that the reviewer was simply unable to keep up. Not a crime, certainly, but also not representative even of those who, like this reviewer, did not enjoy the book.
I’m sorry you didn’t like it. Not everybody will. That’s a given and it is absolutely your right. But, as reviews go, this one did nothing to illuminate the book itself and went quite a long way in obscuring its actual nature. That’s out of bounds, IMO. I would assume, as a sort of journalist, that you would be at least mildly interested in telling your readers the accurate truth.
Again, you are not required to like Sword of Damocles. Feel entirely free to hate it if you believe that’s warranted. But, as a journalist, you are required to describe it accurately or you are not doing your job.
Do better next time, please. And maybe actually read the book in question before rattling off another review, scathing or glowing.
I give this one zero stars out of ten for being completely and wildly inaccurate as well as uninformative.
Cool! You got the author to respond! That’s always awesome – even if they didn’t like your review.
I read this book recently too; didn’t post a review though. I had problems at first too keeping up with the different time periods. But I liked that fact the story focused more on members of the crew than on Tiker and Troi, that was refreshing. I like the concept of Titan too, and hope the series continues… in fact, I wish they’d publish more than one Titan book a year – the wait is crazy.
I liked the end of this book, where he finds the dedication plaque.
For Geoffrey,
Thanks for commenting. For the record of course ShowMeSciFi.com read the book, no post would ever appear on this site with the word ‘review’ otherwise.
We’ll leave the basic reviews to book jackets and sites like Amazon.com. What we do here is break a book down to its essentials. What is it about? Your book was about a time paradox with a very very thin subplot of Troi and Riker trying to have a baby as well as the Bajoran Jaza trying to reconcile his faith in the Prophets. Easy enough.
Do you think that’s too simple? Probably. But you see that’s where you missed the point yourself when you failed in writing this book. It doesn’t properly continue the other underlying threads of the Titan series. That’s not your fault..your editor and publisher should have demanded certain things that they obviously didn’t.
Your editor and publisher also failed you in not helping you to make the time transitions someone more apparent to readers. Random House for example in their Star Wars titles will have many subheads and more frequent chapter changes as an easy way to make complex plots more palatable. Perhaps you should try that next time.
Beyond that we wish you the best of luck in your next writing endeavor and hope that your editing and publishing partners give you the support and help that you so clearly need.
You have not the first clue what you’re talking about vis a vis the editorial process at Pocket and your “analysis” of the book is, to put it in its best light, flawed.
Your description of TITAN as the further adventures of Will Riker is, perhaps something YOU would wish to see but it is, in fact, NOT the way Pocket is approaching the series. Nor was it the intent of the series creators.
Your “review” was not a review. It mischaracterized the book, its plot, its focus and even the themes it was trying to address. Either this was willful and you’re just an oddly sour person who can’t stand for things not to be precisely the way he (or she) would wish or it was based upon an inability to comprehend the material. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt and going with the latter.
As I said, you’re not the only person who doesn’t like the book. There are a few, not many, but a few. This is to be expected. No one can please everyone. However, almost uniformly, they find the lack of the Trois as a central focus to be the big deal breaker, not the actual quality of the prose or the particiapation of or focus on the other characters. They want teh Will and Deanna show and I wasn’t trying to write that.
So, while I sympathize with their feelings, I tell them and you that your preconcieved ideas of what the book SHOULD be have nothing at all to do with what the book is or what it is attempting to be. IOW: You can’t fault a chicken for not being a duck.
For the record: the TITAN canon is still being written. I’m one of the guys who’s been lucky enough to get to add things. I’m sorry if you disagree but you’re not really in a position to differ on this point. There is no set canon as you have alluded to it.
Yes, others have had some probs with SoD but you are the only one who seems not to understand any of the words it contained. And you are the only reviewer, positive or negative, to get the material itself so completely wrong.
You are in fact literally the only person who found the time paradox “thin” and I can only assume this is because, like many denizens of the net, you think yourself a mighty intellect. Maybe you are. But, if this review is an indication of that intellect, it undercuts the assertion fairly decisively.
Normally I don’t respond to this sort of snipe (actually this is the only time it’s ever come up like this). Even with my critics I try at least to find a common place from which to discuss the positives and negatives of a given work. That way both they and I benefit.
But you have to start from a point of actual understanding of the work being discussed and, twice now, you have evidenced a complete lack of that requisite understanding.
It’s too late for SoD but, in future, you might want to spend a little more time on the comprehension aspects before settling down to type. You owe your readers that much at the very very least. And, frankly, you owe ti to those of us who write these things. We sweat for it. You should too.
Just so you understand: I don’t mind a scathing review. If I devour for the good ones, I have to eat the bad ones too. That’s part of the job. Feel free to scathe away. Just get the thing you’re skewering right. Otherwise you look like a liar or a fool.
Or both.
pardon the typos, please. I am distracted.
aaaaaaaaaawww sounds like the poor writer can’t take criticism.
Great job on callin him out!!
I read the book too and also thought it sucked.
Whether you liked the book or not is not the issue. Accurately describing it is. As I said, it’s fine if you hate it. Fee free. Just hate it for what it IS.
Nobody “called me out.” I certainly can handle criticism. There is no criticism in the review. Negative opinions, in themselves, are not criticism. False descriptions are not a review. Simple.
if you think it sucked and you’re just a normal audience member, that’s fine. It sucked. you move on. But, if you mean to be a critic, you have to actually describe why it sucked for you. And, when describing, the things you say have to actually be in the book. That did not happen here.
I read a misleading review and thought I should make a comment about it as this is the sort of thing that keeps people from reading books. There are multiple false statements in the review. Not negative opinions, FALSE statements. So, either they are false on purpose or they are the result of the reviewer not having read it. Those are the only choices, kids.
Trust me, here or live, I’m perfectly capable of handling hecklers. But bring your A game, please. That’s all I’m asking.
[…] book was head and shoulders better than the last Titan book which was barely readable but still not as good as any of the first three Titan books (Taking Wing, […]