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Amazon.co.uk Review
Baxter novices may be wary of such a clichéd plot, but don't despair--his reputation as one of the UK's best sci-fi writers is well founded. Titan is an enjoyable novel, well-written, with just the right mixture of hard science fiction, strong characters and a believable, if undesirable, vision of the future. Reminiscent of 2001 and its sequel 2010, the plot unfolds against the backdrop of a declining world civilization. America is sinking into the mire of Christian fundamentalism and turning against technology, whilst a desperate NASA expends all it's remaining energy and resources on a manned mission to Titan--one- way--with the faint hope of reigniting the public's interest in space exploration. The mission is a technical success, but is ignored by the masses, leaving the astronauts stranded on the outskirts of the solar system with no hope of rescue.
But of course, that's not the end of the story… --Dave Mutton
Review
‘Baxter handles a complex and gripping plot with his customary aplomb… The ending will blow your mind. Buy Titan, read it – and then go out and buy everything else that Baxter has ever written’
New Scientist
‘This is a tale of equivalent scope to 2001, while the visions of Titan life have that sense of Clarke-style cosmic sorrow’
SFX
‘A plausible tale of America’s last gasp at interplanetary exploration… Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is’
Washington Post Book World
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Prescient,
By A Customer
This review is from: Titan (Paperback)
A shuttle crash, disquiet about spending money on space exploration, a right-wing fundamentalist president, China set to launch its first manned mission ....Sound familiar? All in here - and a great story tacked on too. Baxter on top form - how did he guess it all?
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Seeding the universe,
By
This review is from: Titan (Paperback)
‘Titan’ shares a lot of similar ground with Baxter’s previous novel ‘Voyage’, in fact in many ways it can be seen as a variation on a theme, being another alternate history novel transforming the post-Cold War decline of the Space Age into a last ditch attempt to land human’s on another world, only this time with Saturn’s moon Titan being the destination rather than Mars. Where ‘Voyage’ was a fairly restrained and believable alternate history however, ‘Titan’ is far more ambitious, taking in a war between the West and China and ultimately climaxing with such exotic fare as alien life billions of years in the future. Unfortunately however the novel is not entirely convincing: Baxter’s true love is in the technical details of the astronauts mission to Titan, and correspondingly this aspect of the novel is the most richly developed, but Baxter’s near-future Earth never receives the same level of attention, with the result that such massive events as the USA regressing into a new anti-scientific Middle Ages and the subsequent war with China seem exaggerated and unbelievable. There are plenty of great moments in ‘Titan’ to keep the reader interested - particular highlights include the opening sequence where a standard shuttle re-entry turns into a disaster; the rivalry between NASA and the US airforce breaking out into outright violence with the attempted destruction of the Titan mission; and the sad fate of the last of the Moon-walkers as their senility confuses a nursing home with a space mission – but these are evened out by Baxter’s often very dry hard SF sequences which will only really be enjoyed by tech-heads or NASA employee’s.‘Titan’ is a good book, but with a little change of emphasis I felt it could have been a great one. As it is, despite the more exotic SF trappings, I found this slightly less compelling than the very similar ‘Voyage’.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an amazing future history....,
By slidinjac (sussex, england) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Titan (Paperback)
This book is truely amazing. It provides an extraordinary view of a future. Like in all his other books, Baxter covers a huge array of subjects all of great importance in the modern world; from distrust of science, the economic and foreign policy of the United States, the danger presented by a conservative domination of politics, the decline of the family, the destruction of the enviroment, the power of the military, the rise of China in the 21st century and most importantly the possiblities and necessities of space travel. Overall Baxter presents his reader with a bleak and hugely detailed vision of the future, and the chnallenges and movements human beings will meet in the coming century. He is not optimistic for us, but right down in the core of the book there is a ray of hope, a vision reminding us that as long as we are still breathing, as long as the spark of life present on this planet still glows, there is still hope. You could criticise the final chapters as sentimental and out of tone with the rest of the book, I would be inclined to disagree. I think instead that they reflect the hope present throughout the book, they show us the posibility of rebirth and a chance to start again. They also highlight the idea that Steven Baxter seems to hold most dearest, that all that is important is life, the continued existance of living things through colonisation of the stars. Thus this book provides a lengthy, deep narative, with believeable well written characters. It discusses issues important to the modern world, but deep down it is a thesis, a guide, a set of instructions suggesting what must shorely be the right course for the future of the species.
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