Forge of the Titans [Mass Market Paperback]

Steve White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 25, 2005

When Derek Secrest was suddenly pulled out of the Naval Academy to take part in a top secret government project involving telepathy-because tests showed that he had a strong latent talent for psi powers-he thought things couldn't get more weird. He was wrong. Soon he was contacted by a mysterious woman who could open portals at will through spacetime. Her powers seemed godlike, and they were. Millennia ago, extra-dimensional beings with great powers had come to earth and taken on human form, to be later remembered in legends as gods and goddesses-and titans, the ancient enemies of the gods. The godlike beings had driven off the titans, but now they are returning, with a new plan to use humans with psionic abilities to rule the Earth, and not be driven from it this time. And the titans always did have a fondness for human sacrifice and other anti-social activities. Unless Derek and a handful of other telepaths can join forces with the ancient gods to defeat the titans, the world will be plunged into a new dark age of terror and death. But, judging from mythology, just how much can you really trust a god. . . ?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this refreshingly different science fantasy by White (Eagle Against the Stars), Naval Aviation Officer Candidate Derek Secrest is distressed to be pulled away from flight training to undergo testing by a top-secret government organization. When the testing reveals he's a natural telepath, his entire world is turned upside down. An attempt to use his powers to interdict a terrorist plot succeeds, but the plot's masterminds prove to be survivors of Greece's Heroic Age, who not only possess technology superior to our own but also wield magic derived from mass human sacrifices. In addition, they're in league with the malevolent beings known to us through myth as the Titans. Derek and his telepathic friends join the opposition, including the gods of Olympus, who are themselves shaken by the discovery that psionic humans possess abilities beyond both god and magician. The basic plot device-that of evil alien gods who once possessed our world trying to regain a foothold-suggests a Lovecraftian horror, but beyond some lip service about the intradimensional realms controlled by the Titans inducing madness, there's an optimism, if not a teleological evangelism, about humans' place in the cosmos that recalls the best of the John Campbell era of SF. White's core audience of hard SF fans will be pleased, as will fantasy readers who enjoy convincing explanations of how such things as magic and psi powers work.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

White's latest combines the War of the Gods gambit and the Gods from Outer Space conceit to produce an engaging entertainment. Said gods from out there are literally that: the old Olympians, departed from Earth but now carrying on their ancient war with their predecessors, the Titans, who are in danger of winning. Aspiring naval aviator Derek Secrest is drafted into this war because he is a telepath (it's a family trait), and human telepaths may be indispensable to the victory of the Olympians and the salvation of not only Earth but other planets, too. With other human telepaths, one human traitor, and the advice and counsel of the goddess Athena (portrayed not quite accurately on the cover), Secrest battles the Titans and their human allies. After much suspense and many well-handled action scenes, victory goes to the good guys. Erudite if whimsical about classical mythology, this is certain to be enjoyable at least once. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Baen (January 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 074349895X
• ISBN-13: 978-0743498951
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #759,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars This is the type of SF novel I try to avoid, February 26, 2004

By 

E. A. Lovitt "starmoth" (Gladwin, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Forge of the Titans (Hardcover)

"Forge of the Titans" starts out promisingly. It has an interesting lead character, Derek Secrest, who is pulled out of Naval flight officer training school a week before his graduation, in order to participate in a top secret government project.

Navy slang and acronyms lent verisimilitude to the book's first thirty or so pages, and Derek's disappointment in missing his graduation drew my sympathy. The top secret project involving psionic powers has been done many times, but I was willing to follow Derek on his reluctant journey to develop his telepathic talent. I liked the setting, his friends, and even some of the characters who were lifted right out of the SF bible of stock players, such as the humorless but brilliant female scientist.

Derek is ordered to track down a terrorist and determine what he plans to do with a supply of deadly nerve gas. Okay. Fine. That sounds like a practical military application for telepathy. Derek reads his terrorist's mind prevents the release of the nerve gas, but then all sorts of plot devices begin hitting the fan. Goddesses, Titans, and assorted aliens from outer space show up who have nothing to do with the original terrorist plot. Derek and his friends take a space plane into orbit and are kidnapped by the aliens, who turn out to be humans who have developed a superior technology based on magic.

"Forge of the Titans" then descends into techno-babble. Normally, I like a book with snappy dialogue, even when I'm being fed all sorts of pseudo-science (or maybe I should say futuristic science---Heinlein did this so very well without stalling his plot or lessening my attraction to his characters). But I really lost interest when the author began to crank out reams of sentences like: "Soon, the remaining antimatter missles were being launched at 'sprint' ranges, making interdiction difficult even for point-defense lasers." The book turned into a sort of "Psionic Hercules versus the Titans in Outer Space."

Finally, my favorite character is killed off in what seems like a feeble bid for reader sympathy, but he dies so stupidly it simply ended up annoying me.

I don't think I'll bother with the inevitable sequel.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gods meet Spacemen with unpredictable results, January 8, 2007

By 

Marshall Lord (Whitehaven, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Forge of the Titans (Mass Market Paperback)

Steve White started his writing career with Dave Weber writing books set in the Universe of the Starfire space wargames but his writing has tremendously broadened and improved since then and this is one of his best books to date.

This is one of the few books which are hard to categorise as between science fiction and fantasy. Most science fiction books and most fantasy books are so different that the tendancy of publishers and bookstores to lump them in one category is downright irritating, but this is one of those which features Gods and Spacemen and still somehow manages to hang together.

The plot is quite gripping and easy to follow. As in most of White's books, some of the bad guys do truly evil things which means the tone of the book gets a bit dark in places, but there are some good flashes of humour which lighten it up a bit.

Bottom line, if you liked any of Steve White's other books you will almost certainly like this one. It is also a bit like Piers Anthony's "Incarnations of Immortality" series, or like some of C.S. Lewis's more adult works such as the Ransom trilogy, although not so firmly rooted in one particular religious view.

One warning to anyone tempted to buy the book on the basis of the cover art, which shows a beautiful woman fleeing from spacesuited figures through a mysterious portal onto a sea shore. This scene does actually appear in the book, but in the text the woman is wearing a checked shirt, jeans and sneakers, while in the cover illustration all her clothes have mysteriously disappeared.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The War of the Gods, Phase 2, January 20, 2004

By 

Arthur W. Jordin (Smyrna, GA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Forge of the Titans (Hardcover)

Forge of the Titans is the seventh solo novel by the author. This novel is about a group of powerful alien entities who originated in an adjacent universe, the Void. These aliens were organized energy sources within the featureless and amorphous energies of the Void and existed in a state of perpetual sensory deprivation. Then one of them discovered a way to pass from the Void into our universe, where the entities found matter and the joys of sensory perception.

The aliens who first passed through to Earth ruled the natives by might and terror as the Titans. Later, entities from the Void came in the semblance of the Olympian gods and, although still fickle and hard to please, they were more sympathetic towards mankind. Millennia ago, these gods battled the Titans and, with the help of human mages, defeated them and banished their lifeforces back into the Void. The battle caused the island home of the mages to sink into the sea, so the gods searched the galaxy for another home for them. Having discovered a planet almost identical to Earth on the far side of the galactic core, the gods named it Khron and relocated the mages there.

In this novel, the US military is screening all their personnel for psionic talents. Derek Secrest has been brought up from the Naval Aviation Officer Candidate School for the last round of tests and is anxious to return for his final week prior to graduation. He notices a woman with striking features and very long hair among the testees. The tests, however, involve drugs that cause strange dreams and a sense of unreality, so he wonders if she is a figment of his imagination.

After the testing is completed, Derek is told that he will not be returning to NAOCS, but is given two weeks leave, which he spends at his grandfather's home. Glenn Secrest is a former Navy Commander and pilot, so he understands Derek's disappointment at not graduating with his class. This common understanding cheers Derek somewhat, but he still takes long walks to think over his situation.

On one of these rambles, he sees the mysterious woman again, this time through a hole in mid-air. She is being chased by strangers and barely escapes through the portal, closing it behind her. She is so exhausted that Derek takes her back to the house and puts her to bed. When she awakes the next day, he learns that she is called Sophia and she tells him that he should not refuse that which is going to be offered to him.

Immediately thereafter, Derek has visitors who offer him an assignment with JICPO, but do not spell out the details. Since Glenn has served in the predecessor of JICPO during the Vietnam era, he forces full disclosure from the recruiters, including the name of the unit: the Joint Interservice Command for Psionic Operations. Glenn also informs Derek that he can refuse the transfer, but Derek is certain that he must take the assignment.

During the initial testing, Derek had met a Navy pilot, Lieutenant SG Paul Rinnard, and the two immediately became comrades. After Derek reports to JICPO, he finds that Paul is also there. Later they both meet Air Force First Lieutenant Lauren Westerfeld during the briefings and the three of them start hanging out together. The threesome seem to have the most powerful psionic talents in the command.

In this story, the three of them learn that the Titans have returned and are gradually conquering the descendants of the mages on Khron with the help of human imperialists. While on a JICPO mission, they are magically moved from their spaceplane into a Khron shuttle and disappear from the earth and all its environs. Then the threesome travel to Khron to assist in the battle against the Titans.

This story is a science fantasy, having fantasy elements within a scientific framework. Since the creatures from the Void have advanced powers, they appear to be gods or Titans to primitive humans and are very impressive even to technological sophisticates of contemporary times. However, the JICPO threesome are more skeptical than ancient mankind and so find vulnerabilities in the powers of these creatures.

Highly recommended for White fans and for anyone who enjoys tales of humans trying to defeat beings with advanced powers and millennia of experience.