Transformers: Retribution Released Today (January 28) - Additional Excerpt

Rodimus Prime wrote:Does anyone have any idea how much the Quints are actually in this book?

I don't have the book yet (my local B&N didn't seem to have it), but I'd imagine that at least a good chunk of it takes place on Quintessa. The title itself likely refers to the retribution that the Quints want for being rebelled against, overthrown, and ultimately kicked off of Cybertron back during the Age of Wrath.

Though, the title could also refer to Thundertron wanting retribution for his home planet being destroyed by the Rust Plague (which he blames the Cybertronians for).

Is this an exclusive? I didn't see it at Barnes and Noble, though I did pick up the newish Gail Martin book.

njb902 wrote:Is this an exclusive? I didn't see it at Barnes and Noble, though I did pick up the newish Gail Martin book.

Seems it's supposed to be a standard retail release. My B&N didn't have it either. I'm gonna check again on Thursday.

I'm halfway through, it's a good read. The only problem I have is that the writer sometimes forgets that these characters are robots. Mistakes like "blood being spilled" and "rock giving way to metal" around Magnus' fortress keep it from being a great read.

I still haven't found it yet.

Going to check B&N again later today. Though, I can't understand why their website won't let me use the "Search in Stores" feature that I can use for other items for this book. Thus, I can't reserve a copy for myself and am walking into the store blind not knowing if they have it in stock or not.

84forever wrote:I'm halfway through, it's a good read. The only problem I have is that the writer sometimes forgets that these characters are robots. Mistakes like "blood being spilled" and "rock giving way to metal" around Magnus' fortress keep it from being a great read.

What's this? 84forever actually liking a non-G1, Aligned Continuity piece of fiction?

I'm about halfway through the book and not liking how no one remembers having lived through the Age of Wrath, believing the Quintessons' occupation of Cybertron to have been the stuff of myth instead of a reality that most of them all witnessed. And that one of the reasons they (or at least some of them) don't remember it is because of memories that were repressed due to their memory banks being able to only hold a certain amount of info, and that older memory info gets repressed to save space when it no longer becomes relevant.

Then again, the notion of them all having lived through the Age of Wrath did originate from the Covenant. So if this book had been in production for longer than the Covenant was, I'm wondering if the Binder of Revelation had been amended to reflect what the Covenant claimed or if that had been planned by the Binder's writers all along. And if neither, then I wonder if it was something that Justina Robson was told to write or she came up with it herself.

Finally finished this book tonight. Good read. Reads much better than its two predecessors, almost no errors to be found aside from a tiny amount. Definitely the most competently written of the three.

Still a bit miffed by how no one besides Optimus and Alpha Trion remembers the Quintessons. Megatron might have as well, but it's possible that he only remembered them after having had his memory jogged or having heard Optimus speak of their dominating Cybertron. When Optimus is at first among those who doesn't remember them, he gets a pass since the Matrix was being hacked at the time and that was messing with his memories. But the rest of the characters, even those back on Cybertron, have no such excuse for not remembering.

Still, I was pleased to see a lot of the specifics about the Quintesson invasion matching up very well with the details of it mentioned in the Covenant, such as their teaching the Cybertronian how to transform, claiming that the T-Cogs were their "gift" to the Cybertronians, and that they were the ones who installed the cockpits into the Cybertronians' bodies. Consistency is a wonderful thing.

That said, this book sure had a lot of awesome moments in it, such as when several Autobots stormed the Hall of Justice by jumping out of the Ark without parachutes and just slamming into the ground without a care. Or when Devastator made his awesome resurgence to fight Tyrannicon, having not been seen since the middle parts of the Exodus novel. Or when Superion, no, everything with Superion was awesome! And Leviacon, good gravy, Leviacon! I did not see his transformation coming! I bet the moment he transformed was for me like when all those who watched the G1 movie back in the 1980s were awed by seeing Unicron transform for the first time onscreen, not expecting him to do so either.

And we got more insight on why Thundertron hates Cybertronians. His planet was among those that was linked with Cybertron during the Golden Age when the space bridges were active. But when the bridges were abruptly shut down and Cybertron cut off from the other worlds (due to the Rust Plague, according to Covenant), his once-prosperous world suffered and its people died by the millions. Thundertron blames the Cybertronians for casting his world aside so coldly and has had his vendetta ever since.

But, there's something to be said about the way the book ended. We were told somewhere before, be it BotCon or some online source, that this book would be the conclusion of the trilogy, yet it ended as though it were just another piece of a larger story with more to be told. Granted, I wasn't expecting or wanting the book to end with the Autobots and Decepticons reaching Planet Earth, but I was at least hoping for some kind of closure to this book series as, since it's being called a trilogy, this could be the last book in the series. If we're ever gonna get to explore more of these thousands of years' worth of story material that takes place before they arrive on Earth, there has to be another book written. Or at least more fiction set during this time period.

Overall, I give this book a solid A-.

I had gotten it in February, and finished it in about a week. I liked it. Finally it made sense to have that Sharkticon Megatron toy. I almost bought it. It also fit well with the previous books, and I agree, it was the most competently written.