Book 52: Star Trek Titan Over a Torrent Sea

Sometimes having low expectations can be a good thing. At least that was the case for Star Trek Titan: Over A Torrent Sea by Christopher L. Bennett. In the end, I enjoyed the book.

As I said, I had low expectations for this Star Trek book. My friend, who gave me this book, reviewed it on her blog. Her review was less then stellar endorsement. Since her and my tastes tend to overlap to such a great degree especially in the trek universe, I take her opinion seriously.

But I ended up liking the book. It wasn’t stellar but it wasn’t bad. I’m glad I waited to read the book. If I read it like my friend immediately after reading the Destiny and Typhon Pact Series, I would have been let down. It just couldn’t live up to those two series even though it was good in it’s own right.

Over a Torrent Sea was something different to me. It’s rare you see the Trek Universe to dive so fully into an ocean world. Mainly that’s because it’s nearly impossible for the main characters to live underwater over extended periods of time even with the EV suit. But the Titan is blessed with a Selkie (an aquatic species). So they can do more on this aquatic world and learn about this species of squid-whales (squales) who can do some amazing things with biotechnology in huge part to Aili. Then the book also had a minor focus on Troi giving birth to her first baby with Riker (as TNG showed, she had an alien baby that had a short life) and how to deal with Vulcan grief.

I liked seeing the book focus on the new stuff. By having so much of the book based on a non-canon character. It did away with a lot of the problems of depicting a character in a wrong way. But I will have to take issue that if Aili and Riker had a fling 22 years ago, why is she only an ensign when Riker is a captain. That didn’t mesh well since you would think she would have moved up in rank at least once (especially with the wars and events that happened in the Trek universe).

Overall the book wasn’t bad. It was an enjoyable book all in all. It showed me new stuff that I wouldn’t have necessarily thought about in the Trek Universe. Although it’s not the best trek book that came out in the past few years.