Star Trek Titan #1: Taking Wing, Vol. 1 Book

Star Trek books are both the ultimate comfort food and the epitome of a specific genre that refuses to die. One reason why Star Trek needed to get rebooted right in the ass was because it couldn't adapt to the changing times. I'm not sure if it was just pure stupidity (I'm looking at you Rick Berman) or if the creators just wanted to keep the Roddenberry vision alive and in tact (which is why, coupled with stupidity, the producers seemed to bail on the most innovative Star Trek series Deep Space Nine to promote the endlessly redundant Voyager and Enterprise).

Star Trek: The Next Generation was, without a doubt, a revolutionary program much like it's predecessor, Star Trek in the 1960s. A lot of sci-fi even today has roots in TNG's format. . .but while DS9 tried to change the way Star Trek stories were told (and only after three seasons of mimicking TNG), Voyager and Enterprise went back to the same stories and same character types, etc. etc. etc. This would have been fine if it was 1996. . .but it was the 2000s and shows like Farscape, Babylon 5, etc managed to take the Star Trek formula and turn it on it's head and expand it. TNG looks outdated now (as does TOS) but it isn't unappreciated because it STARTED IT ALL (Side note: is it any wonder that DS9 showrunner Ron Moore went on to make the uber critically successful BSG while Brannon Braga can't buy one season of a show?).

Star Trek's book department suffered the same fate as it's television sister shows: the books were always about the same thing and since the producers and such didn't want them canon, they couldn't go anywhere. They were always episodic and lacking in tension. In some ways, this made them fun because, when you were stressed or just needed some light reading, you basically had an unaired episode of TNG, or DS9, or Voyager in your hands.

Almost as if a reaction to the realization that Voyager mostly sucks and DS9 was a new kind of Trek (at the time it was considered 'dark' though by today's standards it is far from), the books did take a turn for the better. Deep Space Nine virtually created a 'Season 8' and onwards with it's books. . .introducing new characters and new situations and leaving the fate of characters up to the writers as opposed to a television show. Soon, TNG followed though in an odd way (I believe there were some prequel books to Nemesis that led towards that film). Then THOSE books started being continuous after the 10th Trek film and creating their own 'series' in a sense. That's where Star Trek Titan comes in.

Titan is about Captain Riker (promoted at the end of Nemesis) and his new ship, the USS Titan. His crew, consisting of wife Deanna Troi and a whole new 'cast' is assigned uncharted space duty. . .an idea I really liked since that was what Trek was all about. . .exploring. And while seeing Riker post-series is fun, the book sabotages itself by *shock* being a television pilot with all the same happenings and goings on you've seen and read millions of times before. Taking Wing, the first book in the series, is basically an episode of Trek TV in the Voyager age: same set up, same mannerisms, same character relations, same introductions, same conflicts, and sae resolutions. If this was TNG #87 or whatever, I wouldn't complain, but this book (and series) promised to be something new and instead I'm getting more of the same.

Even the thesis of the series is betrayed in the first book. The Titan is assigned diplomatic duty on Romulus to take care of the deteriorating government situation going on there due to evil villain Shinzon from Star Trek: Nemesis (the film). There are four or five factions and they all want to kill each and some want to kill the Federation. Riker, on his first mission, is doing this and not exploring. . .he's just as disappointed as I was. I didn't want the LOST episode of TNG. . .I wanted something new.

The series has promise though this particular book does not. It does appear that Taking Wing is part 1 of 2 of introducing everybody and part 3 onwards will be the 'true' mission. I can survive slugging through a few of these to see if it pans out. The worst that could happen is I had some light but poor reading for a few weeks.

But I pray the future books do not rely so heavily on a)Star Trek: Nemesis and b)continuity from other books I haven't read. I've read 100+ Star Trek books but I abandoned them in college when I started studying literature and realized these books are just escapist fun and basically glorified fan fiction. I haven't read a Trek book since 2002. . .so it's been awhile so since the Trek franchise has rebooted it's book series from episodic fare to more serialized fare, I've missed out on a lot. And in regards to a) there are a lot of things Star Trek: Nemesis did well. . .and that was at sucking. Basing a mythology for a new series on a horrible piece of garbage is just bad karma.

Plus, Star Trek on a whole is many things but it isn't subtle. The writers of these books need to bash every social commentary topic down our throats as if we can't understand subtext and grey matter. For example, USS Titan is the most diverse ship in the fleet and it carries a 15% human population (amongst 350 crewm members). The wild array of aliens on the ship is fine, I guess, but instead of just telling unique stories, these 'characters' are mere representations of race relations and will always have a built in conflict resolved by peace, goodwill, and flowers. I'm not an alien racist but a lot of great science-fiction is about humans interacting with aliens, not the other way around. Aliens from unestablished worlds are something I can't relate to. Vulcans, Klingons, etc I can get behind because I'm used to it. . .introducing dinosaur creatures and aquatic helmsmen just doesn't do it for me.

Plus when there are signs of absolute brilliance, like the existence of a Bajoran commander and a Cardassian ensign (if you're a Star Trek nerd you'll get it. . .don't make me explain it) instead of playing with the atmosphere or being ambiguous, the writers have to blatantly describe their races' past and their problems and then have them go from conflict to resolution in a matter of pages. Naturally, they become friends! Ugh!

All this frustration aside, Titan, and Taking Wing, is alien enough to be interesting. There are enough interesting characters and the POSSIBILITY of interesting adventures ahead that I will keep reading the series. But this is my first Trek book in 8 years. . .and my patience is limited. Titan only has one chance before I abandon it. So far, so good.