Shiny Shelf has published my review of John @Scalzi’s novella The God Engines. Hit up the link and share your thoughts.
Shiny Shelf has published my review of Star Wars: Death Troopers, the recent horror novel (yes, horror!) that takes place in that galaxy far, far away. Hit up the link and let me know what you think!
My review of the previous episode of Lost is now up at Shiny Shelf. Hit up the link and let me know your thoughts.
My review of the latest Star Trek: Vanguard novel, Precipice, is now up at Shiny Shelf. Go check it out, you know you want to.
My ongoing review series of LOST’s final season for Shiny Shelf continues, this week covering “What Kate Does”.
Shiny Shelf has published my review of LOST’s season premiere, “LA X Parts 1 and 2”. This is the first of a series of reviews covering the entire final season. Hit up the link and let me know what you think!
Review: Star Trek: Titan: Synthesis
Synthesis is the latest entry in the popular Star Trek: Titan novel series, with well-regarded British writer James Swallow taking the reins this time around. In Synthesis, Titan encounters a race of sentient machines, whose civilization is losing a conflict against a vast and barely comprehensible enemy known as the Null. If the machines fail, the Null could pose a threat to all life in the galaxy, and beyond.
This is why I love the Titan series; Swallow deftly intermixes high-concept science fiction with compelling drama and action. Swallow raises questions about prejudice and machine / AI’s right to life in a way that is fresh. In doing so, he casts a mirror on the diversity of the crew with a twist, while avoiding any heavy-handedness. The world building Swallow treats us to is on par with Christoper L. Bennett’s work, which is to say, fantastic. The Sentry Coalition are an intriguing species, and specifically their member, SecondGen White-Blue. White-Blue, by necessity, is the most fleshed out of the Sentry, and develops the character with a careful hand that made it one of my favorite in the novel. Swallow also does a wonderful job in capturing the crew members’ voices, who come across and authentic and not merely as ciphers.
The criticisms are few. I did not care for the use of Minuet in the novel (the visual, not the character / AI underneath of it). The AI using that “disguise” could have looked like anyone, really, and very little, if anything, would have been lost. In fact, Titan’s AI could have been very interesting character arc over a number of books; it was a bit of a shame to see it truncated here (though, again, necessary). And (certainly out of the author’s control) the cover was what I like to consider a “cheap pop”; to easily draw in the readers who will recognize Minuet’s face, even though it never conveys an actual scene in the novel. I just didn’t care for it.
The Titan series continues to push ahead with its tenet of being “the Original Series for the Next Generation era,” being about Star Trek’s core purpose of exploration. Swallow does the series justice with Synthesis, continuing the high quality that has been a hallmark since the beginning. Highly recommended.
Rating: A
