I must say that I was slightly disappointed with Triton and think that the book has fallen short of the quality of its predecessors. Sadly, I found the dialogue weak, the action bland and there was no real plot to the book. It had purpose, yes, and is unarguably important to the series, but it's far from a page-turner and became quite boring in parts.
As with the rest of Spinward Fringe, Triton begins right where the last book left off and picks up with Jake Valent and his crew as they begin adjusting to their newly secured prize - a hugely powerful warship from the Sol System called the Triton. It quickly becomes evident that the Triton is beyond them, however, in both in technology and size, and Lalonde focuses the story on how his characters come to terms with and adapt to this.
In all fairness many of Lalonde’s ideas regarding this matter are good, although many were a little to ‘convenient’ for my taste. I could easily have let this go though, if the rest of the book had been up to scratch. His unusually poor characterisation, however, along with a significant lack of excitement, made this very difficult for me to do. In fact, I frequently found that Lalonde didn't develop his ideas as fully as he could have and think that he has sold Triton short of its potential.
This isn't to say that Triton didn't have its merits though, and there were parts that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Aside from the obvious attractions of space battles and lower-key scuffles, Lalonde has finally begun to bring many strings from the previous books together, which should prove interesting developments for the later books.
So all in all then, Triton was a bit a let-down. I feel that it failed to live up to its potential and should have been much more enjoyable to read than it was. Despite this, I'm still a huge fan of the series and will definitely be reading the next installment - I just hope it’s a bit more of a page-turner! Please, Lalonde! Please!
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