The Energon Pub

Seibertron user dregxx has brought to our attention the Amazon listing for the third instalment in the Aligned fiction continuity, sequel to Alex Irvine's Exodus and Exiles: the novel Transformers: Retribution. This will be released in January, according to Amazon, with the current pricepoint of $7.99 (plus online discount) and is written by Mark and David J. Williams. Check out the synopsis and cover art below!

For decades, Transformers fans across the globe have marveled at the mighty clashes of Megatron and Optimus Prime, and speculated about their arrival on planet Earth. Now, in Transformers: Retribution, the prequel to the Transformers animated series, the epic odyssey of these two great warriors is finally revealed as Autobots and Decepticons battle one another . . . and the most diabolic foe they’ve ever encountered.

Aboard the Ark, Optimus Prime leads his Autobots through deep space, searching for the AllSpark so vital to their home planet, Cybertron. Megatron’s not far behind, and his Decepticons are itching for war. But a mysterious planet conceals an enemy far more cunning and powerful: the Quintessons. Masters of tyranny, technology, and twisted double crosses, the Quintessons are out to enslave both Autobots and Decepticons. Their deadly bag of tricks includes time travel, fiendish trials, and a secret link all the way back to Cybertron, where Shockwave is wreaking havoc with supercomputer Vector Sigma. In the coming conflagration, Star Seekers, Wreckers, Alpha Trion, and Sharkticons all have their parts to play. For none can dodge the Quintesson juggernaut of evil, and none will escape the cataclysmic life-and-death battles that will catapult Autobots and Decepticons to Earth.

I am uncertain if I would want this book to end with Optimus, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, and Ratchet arriving on Earth or not.

So it's not written by Irwin, so there is a chance that this one won't actually suck?

Dead Metal wrote:So it's not written by Irwin, so there is a chance that this one won't actually suck?

What really bothers me about Irvine is that his other stuff seems to be half-decent (he won prizes!), he taught creative writing and has edited the bloody Vertigo Encyclopedia.

Though, one of my bigger fears of this book is that anyone who didn't read the first two might be totally lost on the hows and whys of the story's beginning since it's picking up where the last one left off, which was a cliffhanger.

Playing the video games won't be enough for those who didn't read the first two since the games are only covered by Book 1, Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Unless this third novel has a ton of infodumping exposition (which I'm hoping it does NOT since that would great pad things out), it might be helpful to those who haven't gotten through the first two to do so ahead of time.

Sabrblade wrote:Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Drabble, waffle and shoddy sentence and chapter structure.

I sincerely recommend that book to no one.

I'm surprised that you, a TFWiki contributor, did not suggest the page for it: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Exiles.

Va'al wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Drabble, waffle and shoddy sentence and chapter structure.

I sincerely recommend that book to no one.

I'm surprised that you, a TFWiki contributor, did not suggest the page for it: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Exiles.

I prefer first hand experience, myself.

It's like the difference between watching a movie yourself and having it told about to you by a friend who saw for you it instead.

Sabrblade wrote:Though, one of my bigger fears of this book is that anyone who didn't read the first two might be totally lost on the hows and whys of the story's beginning since it's picking up where the last one left off, which was a cliffhanger.

Playing the video games won't be enough for those who didn't read the first two since the games are only covered by Book 1, Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Unless this third novel has a ton of infodumping exposition (which I'm hoping it does NOT since that would great pad things out), it might be helpful to those who haven't gotten through the first two to do so ahead of time.

People who read the first two will be confused as to what the hell is going on, f**k the first one was written so badly that half the time I didn't know what the hell was going on.

And the Events of FOC aren't covered in Exodus, unless that game happens in the last 50 pages which I didn't get a chance to read since I burned that piece of crap right after Omega Supreme went from giant sized to normal sized and was beaten up by Megaton.

Va'al wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:So it's not written by Irwin, so there is a chance that this one won't actually suck?

What really bothers me about Irvine is that his other stuff seems to be half-decent (he won prizes!), he taught creative writing and has edited the bloody Vertigo Encyclopedia.

That stuff must have been written by a different ghost writer then, because I refuse to believe that the author of Exodus won any prize at all, well, maybe one for crappy writing.

Sabrblade wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Drabble, waffle and shoddy sentence and chapter structure.

I sincerely recommend that book to no one.

I'm surprised that you, a TFWiki contributor, did not suggest the page for it: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Transformers:_Exiles.

I prefer first hand experience, myself.

It's like the difference between watching a movie yourself and having it told about to you by a friend who saw for you it instead.

Usually, so do I. But in this case I really could not get through the book without swearing at it every other page. I've never had this bad a reaction to a book.

Dead Metal wrote:That stuff must have been written by a different ghost writer then, because I refuse to believe that the author of Exodus won any prize at all, well, maybe one for crappy writing.

From Wikipedia:

Lennie Isaacs Memorial Award, Clarion Writer's Workshop, 1993
Steve Grady Poetry Award, University of Maine, 1995
Albert Morton Turner Essay Prize, University of Maine, 1995
Technology in the First-Year English Classroom Award, University of Denver, 1999
Travel and dissertation research grant, ColRoMorA Family Foundation, 1999
Best Web site of the Year, Entertainment Weekly, for The Beast, 2001
Best Ideas of the Year, New York Times, for The Beast, 2001
Pushcart Prize nomination for "Snapdragons", 2002
Best First Novel, Locus, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
Best First Novel, International Horror Guild, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
Crawford Award for best first novel, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
New England Press Award for investigative journalism, 2004
International Game Developers Association award for innovation, for I Love Bees, 2005
Critic's choice award, 48-hour Film Project, for "Music Box", 2006
Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, for "Wizard's Six", 2007

Dead Metal wrote:People who read the first two will be confused as to what the hell is going on, f**k the first one was written so badly that half the time I didn't know what the hell was going on.

Tell that to those who did manage to make sense of the story.

Dead Metal wrote:And the Events of FOC aren't covered in Exodus,

Exodus ends with FOC's ending of the two ships blasting off for the space bridge portal. FOC just added a whole bunch of excess padding to stall the launch of the two ships, which was much more quick and concise in the book.

Dead Metal wrote:unless that game happens in the last 50 pages which I didn't get a chance to read since I burned that piece of crap right after Omega Supreme went from giant sized to normal sized and was beaten up by Megaton.

You must have misinterpreted something in this (which, admittedly, isn't too difficult to do) since Omega remains a giant throughout the novel.

Dead Metal wrote:That stuff must have been written by a different ghost writer then, because I refuse to believe that the author of Exodus won any prize at all, well, maybe one for crappy writing.

I'm honestly wondering if it had more to do with the editorial staff rather than the writer.

Back when I was doing my exhaustive digestion/comparison of the first book, I kept a log noting what each chapter was about and the important points of interest to compare with those of other continuities, and looking back over at the brief chapter descriptions I wrote, the story in a nutshell does appear somewhat orderly and sensical, with only a few hiccups here and there.

If I can get a hold of the file in a few days (it's currently on a hard drive at my dad's house), I could copy/paste each quick chapter description to show you how the story does flow in a reasonable manner from a distance.

Sabrblade wrote:Back when I was doing my exhaustive digestion/comparison of the first book, I kept a log noting what each chapter was about and the important points of interest to compare with those of other continuities, and looking back over at the brief chapter descriptions I wrote, the story in a nutshell does appear somewhat orderly and sensical, with only a few hiccups here and there.

If I can get a hold of the file in a few days (it's currently on a hard drive at my dad's house), I could copy/paste each quick chapter description to show you how the story does flow in a reasonable manner from a distance.

As much as that is an interesting approach to a book outside of literary criticism, it should not be needed to get information out of a book which is meant for entertainment. To me, it just proves that it's not well written.

Va'al wrote:As much as that is an interesting approach to a book outside of literary criticism, it should not be needed to get information out of a book which is meant for entertainment. To me, it just proves that it's not well written.

At the time, I was doing that for nerd-related purposes. I had already read the book for entertainment purposes, so I guess that means I got enough out of it on the first read to go back and analyze it on an additional go-round (especially after seeing how different and diverse the WFC game and it were from each other).

84forever wrote:I don't get how Exodus was a masterpiece, but Exiles was pure trash...

Neither were masterpieces.

84forever wrote:I'm really looking forward to this book even though the writer is attempting to link it to that horrible Prime series!

"Attempting"? They were linked before the cartoon was even made.

Sabrblade wrote:

84forever wrote:I don't get how Exodus was a masterpiece, but Exiles was pure trash...

Neither were masterpieces.

84forever wrote:I'm really looking forward to this book even though the writer is attempting to link it to that horrible Prime series!

"Attempting"? They were linked before the cartoon was even made.

There are still people who haven't understood that? It's been 4 years now that we've had Aligned, 4 YEARS.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:People who read the first two will be confused as to what the hell is going on, f**k the first one was written so badly that half the time I didn't know what the hell was going on.

Tell that to those who did manage to make sense of the story.

How does it make sense to kill off Bruticus, just to then introduce him for the first time 2 pages later?

Dead Metal wrote:And the Events of FOC aren't covered in Exodus,

Exodus ends with FOC's ending of the two ships blasting off for the space bridge portal. FOC just added a whole bunch of excess padding to stall the launch of the two ships, which was much more quick and concise in the book.

And yet, all the padding in FOC made for a much better story and experience than Exodus.

Dead Metal wrote:unless that game happens in the last 50 pages which I didn't get a chance to read since I burned that piece of crap right after Omega Supreme went from giant sized to normal sized and was beaten up by Megaton.

You must have misinterpreted something in this (which, admittedly, isn't too difficult to do) since Omega remains a giant throughout the novel.

Then that's another point of how sh*tty the writing is, since Megatron is described as standing triumphantly with a leg resting on Omega's Back.
Then there is the whole chamber that they just carry around in their hands.

Dead Metal wrote:That stuff must have been written by a different ghost writer then, because I refuse to believe that the author of Exodus won any prize at all, well, maybe one for crappy writing.

I'm honestly wondering if it had more to do with the editorial staff rather than the writer.

So it's the editor's fault for not correcting every mistake by Irwin? If all these mistakes are the ones the editors didn't manage to find, just imagine what they did find.

Back when I was doing my exhaustive digestion/comparison of the first book, I kept a log noting what each chapter was about and the important points of interest to compare with those of other continuities, and looking back over at the brief chapter descriptions I wrote, the story in a nutshell does appear somewhat orderly and sensical, with only a few hiccups here and there.

A few hiccups? I usually don't realize hiccups when reading/ watching something for the first time, but here I found something on almost every page. Sure if I read it again and summarized it while correcting/ ignoring glaring continuity errors and the sh*tty writing, I could make it seem orderly and sensical, but that doesn't make the original book any less crap.

If I can get a hold of the file in a few days (it's currently on a hard drive at my dad's house), I could copy/paste each quick chapter description to show you how the story does flow in a reasonable manner from a distance.

From a distance and rewritten, then yes it would flow better, but that doesn't make the original actual book any better.

Va'al wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:That stuff must have been written by a different ghost writer then, because I refuse to believe that the author of Exodus won any prize at all, well, maybe one for crappy writing.

From Wikipedia:

Lennie Isaacs Memorial Award, Clarion Writer's Workshop, 1993
Steve Grady Poetry Award, University of Maine, 1995
Albert Morton Turner Essay Prize, University of Maine, 1995
Technology in the First-Year English Classroom Award, University of Denver, 1999
Travel and dissertation research grant, ColRoMorA Family Foundation, 1999
Best Web site of the Year, Entertainment Weekly, for The Beast, 2001
Best Ideas of the Year, New York Times, for The Beast, 2001
Pushcart Prize nomination for "Snapdragons", 2002
Best First Novel, Locus, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
Best First Novel, International Horror Guild, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
Crawford Award for best first novel, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, for A Scattering of Jades, 2003
New England Press Award for investigative journalism, 2004
International Game Developers Association award for innovation, for I Love Bees, 2005
Critic's choice award, 48-hour Film Project, for "Music Box", 2006
Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy, for "Wizard's Six", 2007

Ghostwriters, or he was lazy and Exodus was written by a ghostwriter and not Irwin himself.

Personally, the fact that Alex didn't even play the games his books were supposed to be based on is pretty dang crappy. It would be like someone asking me to write a novelization of a movie I never saw and don't plan on seeing, but I wrote it anyway.

Sorry, but no excuses.

Dead Metal wrote:How does it make sense to kill off Bruticus, just to then introduce him for the first time 2 pages later?

Kill off? In the words of Animated Ratchet, "defeated, not destroyed."

As for the answer, that is indeed an error, yes. We know which should come first, so it's not impossible to mentally switch the scenes around.

Dead Metal wrote:And yet, all the padding in FOC made for a much better story and experience than Exodus.

I guess. Though, it only seemed to just force in Metroplex, more of Bruticus, and the Dinobots just for fanwank rather than any storytelling necessity. Take then out and both ships get to leave sooner with less hassle and less delay.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun filler that I enjoyed being added in (and it gave an opening for all the new Aligned-based IDW comics like the FOC prequel, ROTD, and the BH comics), but still filler.

Dead Metal wrote:Then that's another point of how sh*tty the writing is, since Megatron is described as standing triumphantly with a leg resting on Omega's Back.

How is it impossible for one to set their leg on the back of a giant?

Dead Metal wrote:Then there is the whole chamber that they just carry around in their hands.

Another bit of weirdness, yes. The author probably didn't know what "chamber" was since he consistently wrote as being a small handheld item.

Simon Furman himself has made a similar error multiple times. He has consistently used the word "Emirate" as a name or title of a person, when it actually refers to a place that a person called an Emir rules over.

Dead Metal wrote:A few hiccups? I usually don't realize hiccups when reading/ watching something for the first time, but here I found something on almost every page. Sure if I read it again and summarized it while correcting/ ignoring glaring continuity errors and the sh*tty writing, I could make it seem orderly and sensical, but that doesn't make the original book any less crap.

TFWiki only counts thirteen out of the book's 288 pages that contain errors. That's only ~4.5% of the book.

Dead Metal wrote:From a distance and rewritten, then yes it would flow better, but that doesn't make the original actual book any better.

Well, with this being the Aligned continuity and all, it seems to be only the "from a distance" stuff that matters anyway (the latest offender being how the Prime cartoon changed Ultra Magnus's personality from all his pre-2013 Aligned fiction portrayals, and then tried to just barely fix it by noting "Oh yeah, he did lead the Wreckers, but reluctantly." ).

Dead Metal wrote:Ghostwriters, or he was lazy and Exodus was written by a ghostwriter and not Irwin himself.

Then again, past Transformers novels written by any authors haven't been free of errors or all that well written either. So maybe it's something to do with writing Transformers novels, period.

Sabrblade wrote:

Dead Metal wrote:How does it make sense to kill off Bruticus, just to then introduce him for the first time 2 pages later?

Kill off? In the words of Animated Ratchet, "defeated, not destroyed."

As for the answer, that is indeed an error, yes. We know which should come first, so it's not impossible to mentally switch the scenes around.

Dead Metal wrote:And yet, all the padding in FOC made for a much better story and experience than Exodus.

I guess. Though, it only seemed to just force in Metroplex, more of Bruticus, and the Dinobots just for fanwank rather than any storytelling necessity. Take then out and both ships get to leave sooner with less hassle and less delay.

Don't get me wrong, it was fun filler that I enjoyed being added in (and it gave an opening for all the new Aligned-based IDW comics like the FOC prequel, ROTD, and the BH comics), but still filler.

Dead Metal wrote:Then that's another point of how sh*tty the writing is, since Megatron is described as standing triumphantly with a leg resting on Omega's Back.

How is it impossible for one to set their leg on the back of a giant?

Dead Metal wrote:Then there is the whole chamber that they just carry around in their hands.

Another bit of weirdness, yes. The author probably didn't know what "chamber" was since he consistently wrote as being a small handheld item.

Simon Furman himself has made a similar error multiple times. He has consistently used the word "Emirate" as a name or title of a person, when it actually refers to a place that a person called an Emir rules over.

Dead Metal wrote:A few hiccups? I usually don't realize hiccups when reading/ watching something for the first time, but here I found something on almost every page. Sure if I read it again and summarized it while correcting/ ignoring glaring continuity errors and the sh*tty writing, I could make it seem orderly and sensical, but that doesn't make the original book any less crap.

TFWiki only counts thirteen out of the book's 288 pages that contain errors. That's only ~4.5% of the book.

Dead Metal wrote:From a distance and rewritten, then yes it would flow better, but that doesn't make the original actual book any better.

Well, with this being the Aligned continuity and all, it seems to be only the "from a distance" stuff that matters anyway (the latest offender being how the Prime cartoon changed Ultra Magnus's personality from all his pre-2013 Aligned fiction portrayals, and then tried to just barely fix it by noting "Oh yeah, he did lead the Wreckers, but reluctantly." ).

Dead Metal wrote:Ghostwriters, or he was lazy and Exodus was written by a ghostwriter and not Irwin himself.

Then again, past Transformers novels written by any authors haven't been free of errors or all that well written either. So maybe it's something to do with writing Transformers novels, period.

MAybe we should just stop buying and reading them, I mean half the fun with Transformers is the visual awesomeness, and Irwin (or who ever ghost wrote Exodus for him) is utterly unable to describe something visual.

The short WfC comic based on the Irvine script was half-decent, though.

*looks at his previous post*

HOLY COW, how did that happen?!

Eeeugh! Fixed that formatting nightmare of a post.

Va'al wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Drabble, waffle and shoddy sentence and chapter structure.

I sincerely recommend that book to no one.

I read a lot - after music, reading is easily my favourite hobby. I truly want to enjoy this series but Exiles is one of the most poorly-written books I have ever read.

I'll be getting this I'm afraid. The first two novels were pretty bad as far as their contemporaries go, and do require a bit of chronological leniency, but ultimately they add to the Transformers story. Just like the G1 cartoon.

Bleak5170 wrote:

Va'al wrote:

Sabrblade wrote:Book 2 is a whole space opera style planet-hopping journey wrapped in mystery, mythology, and mystical wonders.

Drabble, waffle and shoddy sentence and chapter structure.

I sincerely recommend that book to no one.

I read a lot - after music, reading is easily my favourite hobby. I truly want to enjoy this series but Exiles is one of the most poorly-written books I have ever read.

I wish that I could disagree with you, but I can't. There would be a list of characters who were at the scene, and then all of a sudden, there would be another character there instead of someone else. It happened quite a bit where it seemed that one character would transform into another character. I had to re-read passages several times to make sure what I was reading was correct.