Titan [Paperback]

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

‘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

2004: NASA’s Cassini probe reaches Saturn – and the story of Titan begins.

Titan is the epic saga of one woman’s will to succeed and the triumph of a dream over bureaucracy and fear. Paula Benacerraf, grandmother and astronaut, is appointed to oversee the dismantling of the Shuttle fleet after another Challenger-type disaster. Instead, she listens to the oddball JPL scientist Rosenberg, who is determined to explore the ammonia-based life Cassini discovers on Titan.

Using NASA’s rusting Saturn rockets, mothballed Apollos and remaining Shuttles, frail humans are hurled, in the face of violent opposition from the military, to the edge of the Solar System. To the edge, also, of sanity.

2004:

NASA'S CASSINI PROBE REACHES SATURN THE AMAZING STORY OF 'TITAN' BEGINS

Thanks to one woman's will to succeed and the triumph of a dream over bureaucracy and fear, frail humans are hurled on a ten-year one-way trip to investigate evidence of life on Saturn's moon, Titan. Their ship is patched together from the remnants of fifty years of spaceflight, and they leave earth in the face of violent opposition from the military. Approaching the edge of the solar system, news from earth brings them close to the edge of sanity …

"A plausible tale of America's last gasp interplanetary exploration … Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is"
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

"Baxter handles a complex and gripping plot with his customary aplomb .. The ending in which we learn the right way to colonise the Universe, 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 the tale of equivalent scope to 2001, while the visions of 'Titan' life have that sense of Clarke-style cosmic sorrow"
SFX

Stephen Baxter applied to become an astronaut in 1991. He didn’t make it, but achieved the next best thing by becoming a science fiction writer, and his novels and short stories have been published and have won awards around the world. His science background is in maths and engineering. He is married and lives in Buckinghamshire.