Product Description

Following their harrowing mission in the first Titan novel, "Taking Wing", in which they were thrust into the heart of the war-torn Romulan Empire, Captain Riker and the crew of the starship, Titan join forces with a task force of former foes. Together they investigate an eighty-year-old mystery involving a strange offshoot of humanity known as the Neyel, introduced in the authors' best-selling Lost Era novel, "The Sundered". Catapulted to a distant neighbouring galaxy, the task force of Klingons and Romulans is devastated by forces that have apparently already brought about the destruction of the Neyel civilization. Titan's intrepid crew must learn what really became of the Neyel before the force that felled them sets its sights on the Federation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62652 in Books
• Published on: 2005-11-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Customer Reviews

hmm alright
Compared to Taking Wing, this was not as exciting, in my view. It's still worth reading if you have read Taking Wing.. and Taking Wing is quality!
Sometimes it's a little too cheesy, but you'll have to forgive it for being so; It's Star Trek!
I thought it might be based on the child born on Titan, becoming king of a new world or something like that!
This might be your cup of tea! Worth a read.

Titan Book 2 - a good job

The Red King is the second book in the Titan series. The authors of the opening book: Taking Wing return to continue the adventures of Captain Riker and the crew of the new Luna-class vessel. Taking Wing was left with the interesting climax that a fleet of Romulan Warbirds, Titan and a cloaked Klingon vessel had been displaced 200,000 light years away from Romulan space by a spatial rift created during the events of the film Nemesis.

The displacement of the Titan into Neyel space provides the authors with an opportunity to revisit a interesting science fiction concept introduced in their Lost Era novel The Sundered. The Neyel being to humans what the Romulans are to the Vulcans. By chance two of the original members of Sulu's Excelsior crew who previously encountered the Neyel are on board Titan: Akaar and Tuvok. These characters take a prominent place on the artwork on the cover of the novel, the relationship of these characters forming an important subplot to this novel.

Having not read The Sundered perhaps my enjoyment of this novel suffered somewhat in the early chapters of this book. The fluency and pace of the closing chapters of Taking Wing and opening chapters of The Red King being brought to an abrupt halt as we are brought up to speed with the Neyel.
There is quite a bit to take on board here - as well as the continued task of getting your head around the diverse species within Titan's crew.

However perserverence with the detail is rewarded, this is a good science fiction book. The exploration of the Neyel is interesting, its mythological explanation for the phenomenon encountered in their space providing a counterbalance to the locking of scientific minds on Titan. There is a strong scientific theme running through this book: spatial rifts, emerging proto-universes etc with a solution to returning to Romulan space and preventing a full-scale ecological disaster firmly in the hands of the scientists.

Characterisation is good, and probably the highlight of this book. The Akaar and Tuvok subplot is interesting and intelligently concluded. The relationship between Riker and the Neyel character Frane providing a nice vehicle for exploring the differences and similarities between humans and Neyel, but the highlight for me has to be the Romulan Commander Donatra - a complex character with many layers packed with plenty of potential for later novels.

Mangels and Martin always cram a lot into their novels and this is no exception.

In terms of rating this novel, throughout much of the novel I would rate it as a solid 3 stars. Towards the conclusion of the novel as various storylines were tied up I was almost tempted to give it 4 stars. The storylines have interweaved well in the first two books and have been developed to a suitable conclusion rather than been left to hang and appear totally pointless.

The only problem I have with the novel is that in a years time I can't imagine that it will be particularly memorable. An enjoyable read that provides a satisfying conclusion to Taking Wing. The fact that the next Titan novel has been penned by my favourite Trek author Chris Bennett has left me eagrely anticipating what comes next, it is going to have be a good novel to keep me in the Titan saga for the long haul.

Finding the new characters hard to get my head around
An interesting second book in the series by M+M. As well as a sequel to the first Titan book it serves as a sequel to their previous novel in the Lost Era series based on Sulu's Excelsior... which I vaguely remember reading about 5 years ago. Sadly, my memory isn't good enough to recall it that well (in fact, the Lost Era series didn't grip me that much at all... to the extent that I don't think I finished reading them). So, the opening chapters threw me a little until I, along with the crew of the Titan who didn't serve with Sulu, was brought up to date.

Once the little recap was past, an enjoyable romp ensued, however I'm still having trouble getting to grips with the new characters... for the books based on the series they are easy to imagine, and some others, like New Frontier and the DS9 relaunch seem to have easily introduced new characters, but in both the Stargazer and Titan novels I'm not picking this up. Partly I think this is because the authors are making an effort to be more serious in their SF - going for more extreme forms of life rather than stock humans in prosthetics. And I've never really been able to get my head around those.

Did the novel advance the ongoing story arc? Well, that depends on what's going to happen in the next novel... I don't know if this arc will continue, but there were deaths, and the relationships between some of the characters changed... most of those that look important in a negative way, I must admit. So I suppose I really will have to wait and see if the author that picks up the series in the next novel will chose to pick up on those, or whether they will fly off in a new and different direction.