The Red King (Star Trek-Titan Book 2)

Titan was meant to explore but has to fight instead. Early space travel had military men who learned to be explorers.Titan has scientists and explorer s learn to become a fighting unit.The final ending is telegraphed throughout the book. See if you figure it out.

This book is a continuation of Captain Riker's command on the USS Titan and continues the story line from the first book, "Taking Wing". I liked the book; however, I'm not sure it is as good as the first one. I'm interested to see what others write. I hate to say it, but it is typical of the Star Trek franchise in their three-part book writing where the second book is always not quite as good as the first, but the third book is always better. There's a lot of action in the book, so it does keep you interested. The solution to how the Titan gets out of the Magellan Cloud is innovative. Since I'm a huge Star Trek TNG fan, I recommend it.I'm really glad to see the Star Trek franchise continue the story after the movie Nemesis. I would really love to see the Star Trek Franchise do a movie on the Star Trek Titan books or do a TV movie based on the Star Trek Titan books. I think that TNG was the best Star Trek series and I think it is a shame that the Franchise has so mismanaged their opportunity with TNG.

The Red King is the second book in the Star Trek Titan spinoff series. The series follows the adventures of William T. Riker (from Star Trek The Next Generation) as he commands the starship USS Titan, other returning characters include Diana Troi and Tuvok. This story is set shortly after the events of the movie "Star Trek: Nemesis" and picks up immediately where the first Titan book "Taking Wing" left off. The story is written with the assumption that you have read the first book, so you should probably read that first to understand what is going on. The book also ties in with the novel "Star Trek: The Lost Era 2298: The Sundered", but isn't necessary to enjoy this book.The storyline of this book is pretty straight forward, with the crew of Titan and some Romulan ships stranded in the Small Magellanic Cloud (a dwarf galaxy near our own). Due to the events of Star Trek Nemesis a portal between Romulan space and this other galaxy has formed and is threatening to destroy the entire region. The storyline is primarily a man versus nature premise, with most of the drama spent on the characters reactions to this force of nature as they desperately try to stop the destruction and save as many lives as possible.The second plotline is from the perspective of the Romulan Commander Donatra, who has to retrieve her lost fleet while dealing with an unruly co-equal Commander who has different ideas on how their fleet should proceed. This storyline felt anticlimactic however, as every time the tension ratcheted up it was quickly diffused in some quick and convenient manner.There is also a minor racism subplot where some of Titans alien crew members discuss whether Riker has a bias towards humans over aliens. This is largely silly though, due to Star Trek long standing stance about diversity and acceptance.There isn't a whole lot of direct conflict or action to be had in this story and the pacing is a tad slow for the stakes that are being portrayed. This story is more about the emotional strain and response to the events around the characters. Most of the story tends to telegraph its next move, although they surprisingly leave things a bit open ended, possibly to leave room for future visits to the SMC.The book is somewhat mediocre, not really standing out in any particular way. It does succeed in leaving me curious about the tie in story from the Lost Era miniseries, so I might get that book later.

Three characters get significant development in this book: Admiral Leonard James Akaar, Romulan Captain Donatra, and one-shot alien Frane. The development of these three characters is well-done and fairly interesting, but at least one of them is probably not a recurring character, and Donatra may not be as well. So the ONLY Starfleet character who is handled in an interesting way in this book is Akaar; the rest are handled competently but without adding much to their established personae.In addition, the plot is not the best; apparently, the authors feel that in order to rank as legitimate heirs to the Star Trek legend, the crew of the Titan MUST "save the universe" fairly early in the series in order to establish their chops. Frankly, I got tired of the "Enterprise saves the universe (or at least the planet)" plotline a LONG time ago; I've always considered it pretty dubious and have rarely seen it done well. This story was no exception; it was clearly a deus ex machina, with the engineering staff in the role of demigods who come up with "a plan" for "fixing" a stellar phenomenon that was capable of wiping out parsecs of space. How detonating a couple of dozen warp cores (small potatoes on the scale of something that erased star systems) could accomplish this feat was left as an excercise for the student (because no amount of bafflegab was going to make it plausible.)The nuts and bolts of the book were moderately well-done; it was written well enough (there were a few more typos of the "those who'd managed to survived" sort than I care for, but not an unforgivable amount for a mass-market paperback; I've certainly seen much worse) but neither the plot nor the characterizations were exceptional. All in all, a disappointment.

The first Titan book boldly went nowhere with a story overburdened by continuity and Romulan politics. This follow up delivers on the original premise throwing the Titan, her multi-species crew and a bunch of Romulans across the galaxy where they have to deal with a long lost earth colony and an emerging proto universe.The story cracks along and delivers an exciting story with plenty of action as the crew race against time to save themselves and a whole planet. The characters work well together and are developing into real people rather than walking back stories.The only downside is the relatively little coverage given to the Neyel. We find out very little about an interesting culture - I understand previous Star Trek books have addressed them in more detail but it's a shame to get so little exploration of them here.

Yes, do that. I'm not a fan (normally) of the mangels/martin writing combo, and that has stopped me progressing through the Enterprise series of books, mostly because of the over-use of romulan words that are difficult to read, I ignored my reservations with this series as I wanted, Hoped, Wished, that this book series would be worth putting up with, because I wanted to follow the continuation after the Nemesis film.Its better than I thought.Dear Mr Martin Mangels: I'm sorry. I was wrong.Thank you.P.S. Seriously, the cover is worth some consideration when buying the book, either dead tree, or monochrome tech.

This was a decent enough read and addition to the Star Trek universe. I liked where this book picked up immediately where the last book had left off, almost making the first book a 2 part story! A good read with some nice depth, a bit of action and exploring some more character development in the grander scheme of things, I'd suggest staying with the Titan story arc as the books do get better!

The first part of this two-part novel is excellent. This part, however, takes an unexpected turn that seems too daring for a story about a new crew. There is a lot going on that's hard to follow but the author still manages to make the characters believable. As far as characters go, there's no complaints. As far as the story goes, it's difficult to keep tract of and I found it hard at times to push myself to read further.

I really enjoyed how this wasn't all about the Federation and it's dominion over everything but rather had a lot more to do with the high power and interaction between the Romulans and the Klingons. It was good to see other races being as politically powerful, threatening and as important as the Federation is.