Titan: Taking Wing

Now obviously because this is a series opener, with a recently promoted captain taking on a brand-new ship and building a brand-new crew, you should expect a lot of new faces, interspersed with a few well known faces of course; Melora Pazlar from DS9 probably being my favourite character here (having already read the Destiny trilogy - as was my entry point into beta canon - I knew she would likely feature); and because this is the written word and not live action the author can let their imagination go wild ... dinosaur for a doctor, why not? (also a lamp) ... to build, as the protagonist mentions in the early pages of the book, the most diverse crew Starfleet has ever seen. This does get difficult, remembering all of this as you go show more forwards, but it gets easier the more you get to know each of them (though it gets less exotic as you move through also) - I think what I'm really missing however, is a page or two listing the crew of the ship, against their rank, position, and species; not unlike those in the appendices to the Destiny trilogy.

Otherwise, however, I felt this was a good setup to the rest of the series, it's really just a shame the first quarter of the book is all background, the next quarter is just setup, then much of the next quarter is once again more background, but we get to the meat eventually - hopefully the next three can fill in more of the Nemesis-Destiny gap (not to mention seeing Titan do what it was built for; Diplomacy is what the Enterprise exists for, Titan exists for Exploration). show less

Erst einmal zu den negativen Dingen: Das Hörbuch war unglaublich schlecht und langweilig gesprochen und offenbar hat niemand Detlef Bierstedt gesagt, wie die Namen der Personen ausgesprochen werden, mit denen er nicht bei der Synchronisation von Star Trek: Next Generation zu tun hatte. Das war überaus enttäuschend, da ich ihn bisher als guten Sprecher kenne (z.B. kürzlich von "Metro 2033"). Doch selbst die schlechteste Lesung kann nicht den Inhalt kaputt machen, und den fand ich tatsächlich großartig.

Die Handlung hat sich zwar etwas zäh aufgebaut, Aufzählung und Einführung der ganzen neuen Besatzungsmitglieder waren am Anfang zu viel und verwirrend. Doch als sie im späteren Verlauf immer wieder vorkamen, mir durch ihre show more Hintergrundgeschichten und ihre Interaktion untereinander immer näher gebracht wurden, sind sie mir vollkommen vertraut geworden. Teilweise habe ich mich wie ein Teil der Besatzung gefühlt, der diesen Personen täglich begegnet. Wunderbar umgesetzt und die absolute Stärke des Buches, die mir länger im Bewusstsein bleiben wird als die eigentliche Handlung. Jeder einzelne Charakter war faszinierend und vielschichtig umgesetzt.

Die Handlung an sich: Nun ja, ich konnte nie so viel mit den Romulanern anfangen und den Film "Nemesis", dessen Fortsetzung hier erzählt wird, halte ich für das Schlechteste, was mir je in Sachen Star Trek vorgesetzt wurde. Vielleicht sollte ich jetzt einfach mal das Buch zum Film lesen, denn viele der Rückblicke auf die Handlung haben doch mein Interesse geweckt. Oder ich überwinde mich, und schaue sogar noch einmal den Film.

Alles in allem hat mich der Auftakt der Titan-Reihe so begeistert, dass ich mir die Serie auf jeden Fall komplett zulegen werde. Meine bisherige Einschränkung "Ich lese nur Star-Trek-Classic-Romane" wurde mit diesem Roman beendet. show less

Taking Wing wasn't the best Star Trek book out there.

If you want to read this I highly recommend [re]watching Star Trek Nemesis. So much of what goes on in this story is related to that practically immediate predator in the Star Trek universe. The book focuses on the beginning of Riker's next part of his life journey after TNG as the captain of a new starship Titan. Much of the story is focused on his relation ship with one Admiral Akaar and his judgment of Riker's new role with more than one person upset that he made his wife part of the senior officers.

I didn't realize how much say a Star Fleet captain gets a say in the makeup of his crew, but there was much emphasis about Titan, at Rikers' request, having the most diverse crew in show more star fleet history. About 30 character are brand new to the universe, and many of them belong too species never seen before on T.V., such as the ships surgeon Ree, a Pahkwa-thanh, who basically looks like a dinosaur, a raptor who eats raw meat only. It's a little hard to keep track of. Certainly not enough to be meaningful for this story. I know its the start of a new series but a good book should be well enough to stand on its own.

The beginning is pretty good, and the ending is very good, but the middle is a real drag. The intricoes of Romulan politics isn't for everyone. If there was an easy way to get you to skip it I'd recommend.
Still it's enough for me to put the next book in my library book queue.
Lets hope for more in Titan #2. show less

The "all alien all the time" was a bit exasperating, and smacked of TAS shenanigans, but the underlying story and universe development worked for me.

This is a good book to get into after watching Star Trek: Nemesis. It basically picks up right from the start of Riker's command of the U.S.S. Titan - a new 'Luna' class starship.

I really enjoyed the book and, honestly, found myself not wanting to put it down. The most enjoyable aspect of the book for me was the fact that it really starts a whole new era of Trek adventures for some of the familiar TNG characters I love. I felt that the authors really took Riker and Deanna and pushed them forward into a "post-Enterprise" chapter of their lives. Sure, they're the same people as they were before, but, as you know yourself if you've ever moved to start a new career, there's a "fresh start" aspect of the experience that leads to change. It's show more interesting to me to see how things are changing for Riker and Deanna and the Trek universe as a whole. I feel that the authors captured that well.

Some of the points that the more negative reviews have are legitimate, though. I did feel like there were too many new characters and I had a hard time keeping them all straight. There is also an overbearing sense that the main point the authors were trying to make - on a moral level - was that bigotry is wrong. They really did emphasize this, almost to the point of ad nauseam.

I was able to get through that, though, and still really enjoyed the book. There are a couple of 'surprise' appearances by other characters that I didn't see coming, and that are well-written. If you read some of the other reviews, I'm sure you can find out who they are. show less

An excellent start to a series that I have a lot of high hopes for.
One complaint I have is that Romulan politics are about as exciting as you would imagine them to be (as in: not), and the 5 or 6 factions that make up the relevant players in that situation became tedious a bit, toward the center of the book.
Another complaint I have is also something I came to like about the book - which may sound odd. There are about 37 characters to learn on the Titan, at least 30 of which don't exist in Star Trek continuity prior to the series (and the ones that do are, with the exception of 3 or so, are only well known to hardcore fans). It quickly became obvious that I was going to need to take character notes, and look up some racial information on show more key characters online. This became sort of fun, in an OCD kind of way. show less

In reading this book, I felt like it was almost two different books, based on the style of writing and what was happening. I know that it was written by Michael Martin and Andy Mangels, and I am unsure how that collaboration on the book went, and at the back of the book, there is a short paragraph on each author that establishes his credentials within the Star Trek universe.

Star Trek: Titan is a series based on Will Riker being offered his own command, as seen in the movie Star Trek: Nemesis, and of course Deanna Troi, his wife, goes along with him. The series picks up almost immediately where the movie left off as far as Riker and the starship Titan are concerned, with the ship still in space dock. The primary mission of the Titan is show more long-range exploration.

I have been out of the Star Trek book circle for awhile, and recently made the decision to get back to reading some of these. And like other reviewers of this book, I felt that there were too many characters with too many different names to really keep track of them all or feel any connection to many of them. Some of those characters apparently had been in some of the Star Trek: The Next Generation relaunch of books, though I wasn't familiar with them. Others were both minor and major characters of one or another TV show. I felt that the first part of this book was littered with minute little details that had no bearing to the story that was going on, whether that the author(s) tried to put everything they knew about Star Trek (and what they knew, it seemed, came from cliff notes)into the book. Also in the first half of the book, the action seemed to be glossed over, with very little dialogue, I felt. The characters of Will Riker and Deanna Troi seemed almost out of character for how they would have acted while on TNG.

And then about half way through, everything changes. The story actually becomes exciting as the Titan finally reaches Romulan space, meets up with the Klingons and then the Romulans as they make their final way to Romulus and the various factions of the Romulans that are trying to get into power. In the second half of this book, I found it difficult to put down and was a much quicker read than the first half of the book. The action is better, the dialogue is better, with the characters acting more within character, and less of the almost constant anti-racism preaching that was prevalent throughout the first half of the book.

The Romulans are not depicted as good as they have been by Diane Duane, and because of that, I would not consider this book essential Romulan reading, but overall, the book does set up the Star Trek Titan universe fairly well.

So, whereas the first half of the book would have warranted two or two-and-a-half stars, the second half redeemed the book to get it up to three-and-a-half stars. I will add the second book of the series to my "will read" column, and give the series at least one more chance. show less