A review by birdmanseven
Excelsior: Forged in Fire by Michael A. Martin, Andy Mangels

3.0

I really wanted to give this a higher review and I hope they do more novels that follow Sulu on the Excelsior. The thing is, there was a really good story buried deep down in the narrative. Too much perspective and time shifting, the Klingon angles weren't very interesting and there wasn't enough focus on Sulu's rise to commander of Excelsior. Again, I sincerely hope they expand on this series because I really enjoy reading from a perspective other than Kirk's. I mean, I love Kirk, but it's nice to see the character of Sulu expanded beyond just one of the token minorities that add a little color to the Enterprise bridge. Ultimately where this novel failed was the authors' attempt to tell too many stories. Strip it down, give us more from the perspective of the Excelsior and it's crew. Some much time was wasted on plot points and characters that eventually went no where. I was also disappointed with the end of story. I was reading along waiting for things to come back into focus when suddenly I find myself on the Acknowledgement page. All that to say it was a decent book, but I wanted (and expected) more from it. Maybe next time, Sulu.