Customer Reviews

Star Trek: Titan #6: Synthesis

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Swallow's entry in to the STAR TREK: TITAN series is an interesting twist on sentient machines and AI, along with an original threat that is comparable with other "high concept" sci-fi novels out there. Combined with Swallow's excellent capture of the crew's voices and wonderful drama, SYNTHESIS is a novel that lives up to the core values of TREK: the wonder of exploration and adventure. Highly recommended.

This book is a better treatment of Titan. No more side plots dragging the Titan crew into The Next Generation storylines. No Romulans or Borg. Titan is back to doing what they were meant to- To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before.

There are a few twists and turns in the second half of the book so I'll keep away from too much of the story, except to say that the Titan comes across an Artificial Intelligence civilisation and it takes a lot of adjustment on the part of the crew to change their way of thinking to that of a machine society. I could see the situation in this book as being the precursor for the beginning of Culture (Iain Banks) or The Polity (Neal Asher).

Overall it's a well written book with an interesting plotline with an unexpected ending which leads itself open to new possibilities.

I apologise for the lack of specifics, but sometimes it's best not to spoil the whole book by giving everything away, like most tv and movie trailors tend to do these days.

I liked "ST Titan: Synthesis" a lot. The storyline, characters, etc. worked well together and held my interest. Perhaps I have finally become accustomed to the "Titan" universe. It was one of the better of the "Titan" series that I have read, especially compared to Titan Book 3 "Orion's Hounds" which was plodding and bordered on dreadful. (I had a difficult time finishing "Hounds" and frequently scanned rather than actually read several passages in that book.)

One issue I have with the Kindle edition of this book -- the formatting. There is a space or line break between nearly EVERY paragraph in this book. In print or other Kindle edition ST books, there is often a line break between sections, or a section break is sometimes indicated by a row of asterisks (*****). "Titan: Synthesis" does not follow this formatting convention and, at times, it took me a bit to mentally catch up with the fact the book had moved on to a new "section." It is really more annoying than anything, but it is the only book I have bought with this issue.

Otherwise, I highly recommend ST Titan: Synthesis.

Once more, Star Trek's Titan sails into the unknown, this time at the hand of James Swallow, and James does not disappoint.

Since I'm not crazy about three-book series or crossovers that span three or four different Trek incarnations, the relatively stand-alone nature of the Titan books are right up my alley.

In this story, Titan becomes heavily involved with a society of AI's who are not much like any artificial intelligence they've seen before. I found myself cheering for what occurred (thinking "Andromeda, finally!") and was only mildly disappointed by the ending. That's not to say the ending was disappointing, only that it wasn't what I was hoping for.

In between, we have the crew of Titan: wonderfully new, incredibly diverse, and *always* mighty interesting.

Oh, and the cover art, by Cliff Nielsen, is gorgeous and fits with the story - er, for the most part, anyway!

Book 6 (Synthesis) of the Titan Series is good as the others. This book is a continuance of the Titan mission with Captain William Riker, Commander Vale, Commander Tuvok, and Commander Troi. The book takes place a few months after book 5. Titan is continuing its mission of exploring the unknown. This mission is an exploration of a society of all computers/artificial intelligence. Like all the other Titan books, its an enjoyable read. I highly recommend it.

When Riker and crew make contact with a race of intelligent, emotional machines, the USS Titan is brought in the middle of an ancient war of attrition between the AIs and a mysterious entity known as the Null. Then the AIs reprogram the USS Titan--yes, the ship itself--into a living, thinking being that can make its own decisions. Ghosts of Lt. Commander Data flood the thoughts of Riker and Troi as they and the rest of the Titan crew must interact with (what are in many ways superior) artificial entities. The issue of trust is the main theme in Titan: Synthesis. Prejudice is rampant on both sides as a crew of mostly biologic organisms comes face-to-face with a culture of robots.

James Swallow does an excellent job using the diversity of the Titan crew to convey this story from multiple angles. He knows each character's strengths, weaknesses, and mannerisms like he had invented them. The plot is complex and mysterious at first and touches upon many facets of the crew members' lives.

Titan: Synthesis is a intriguing and well-paced read that should please anyone who has kept up-to-date with the series as well as people who are familiar with the Trek universe but has never read a Titan book before.

After the reading the previous Titan books, this is probably the best of the buch so far. Takes me back to the morality plays of the TNG series. We start to see Riker really come into his own as captain. The crew dynamics are starting to to be more complex and enjoyable. While the ending feels rushed, the questions raised by the end are quite thought provoking.

This book was awesome. Very well written, and a great story-line. If you haven't yet, start at the beginning of the Titan series, you will enjoy all of them.

The book itself is great, it's sad that this is "currently" the last of the Titan books that concentrate solely on the Titan, hopefully there will be more in the future. The story is engaging right from the beginning with the right amount of mystery and slow unveiling of the plot. A few times things get a digressive when it comes to discussion of technical and philosophical details but this is Star Trek, so it can be forgiven for that. For the most part, things don't get too bogged down in long-winded discussions and it is an enjoyable read.

The Christine Vale character still seems a little too off kilter for a Star Trek XO due to the 21st century style mannerisms. Sometimes when I am reading about her thoughts and actions, it feels like there was no enlightment that brought the United Federation of Planets to where it is "today" and that she (or the author) relies too heavily on the "peace keeper" gambit to justify why she is so confrontational. All the other characters have good justifications for their questioning of events but her's seem to be founded on old ways. This is the same through the whole series.

The biggest annoyance with this particular book for me, is the formatting of the Kindle version. Every single paragraph is separated by a double-line. Normally, like the last 5 books as well as every other Kindle book or even paperback, a paragraph simply starts on a new line rather than adding an extra blank line; and then when there is a blank line denotes the start of a new scene. In this book, as I said, every paragraph has a double blank line and then when the scene changes, there is no extra anotation of this, which is very jarring to the overall experience. There was one time when there was the three dots (***) to denote the scene change around 30% in to the book but every other time, there is no anotation.

All in all though, despite the formatting issue, this is great book and a real page turner.

In my opinion, one of the best in the Titan series. Very engaging, and exciting material. Also, the author has done a wonderful job of painting in the details of some of the other Titan crew that we didn't see as much of in the other Titan series books.