Andy Mangels and Michael A Martin’s follow-up to their first Star Trek: Titan novel, Taking Wing, does little to build upon the success of its predecessor. Whereas Taking Wing was a promising, if a little indulgent, offering that had Trek television pilot stamped right through it, The Red King tries to be innovative and intelligent science fiction – and sadly it falls flat.The cliffhanger ending to Taking Wing saw both Titan and an entire fleet of Romulan Warbirds catapulted into the Small Magellanic Cloud, some 200,000 light years away from the Alpha Quadrant. Whilst the move reeked of The Next Generation episode “Where No One Has Gone Before” and, of course, Star Trek: Voyager, it was nonetheless a tantalising one, and seemed to encapsulate the new series’ pioneering spirit. What’s more, it offered the authors the chance to revisit and expound upon the potentially fascinating culture of their Neyel – an offshoot of humanity once encountered by the Excelsior during Tuvok’s days on board. However, it only takes a few chapters for the momentum of Taking Wing to slow to a gentle gambol as we are drawn into a slow and derivative, science-heavy tale of proto-universes and macroscopic consciousnesses that seldom threatened to grab my attention.
Even Titan readers who prefer the harder stuff in terms of plot will be let down by aspects of the characterisation here. As the eponymous Red King is so abstract a conceit, the authors try to personify some peril in the hitherto-helpful Romulan Commander Donatra, neatly undoing much of their earlier good work with her character. Worse still, exciting newcomers such as Dr Ree are almost completely overlooked in favour of the likes of the comatose Commander Keru, whose prosaic exploits leave one in a broadly similar state. Of all Titan’s crew, only its captain and tactical officer are handled even reasonably well here, but in the case of both they’re left holding up the interesting end of their respective double acts.Extremely ambitious, The Red King is a novel that might offer something to trekkers who invest more heavily in their science than they do their fiction, but for most of us I fear that it’s going to prove a major misstep – and not just 60,000 parsecs out of the Alpha Quadrant.
