Titan - Softcover

Baxter, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0002246740 ISBN 13: 9780002246743

Publisher: Harper Voyager, 1997

Synopsis

NASA’s Cassini probe will reach Titan in 2004: Titan is the amazing story of a visionary’s response to the discovery of life on Saturn’s moon. Another BIG space novel from the acclaimed successor to Arthur C. Clarke and Robert Heinlein: the conquest of space as it could still happen.

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.

About this title

Review:

Take some archetypal sci-fi characters (ageing moonwalker, several bright young astronauts and a dedicated but reclusive scientist), throw in the near future scenario of a declining space programme following a catastrophic fatal accident, mix well with some unusual plot twists and you have the foundations for Baxter's eighth novel.

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:

‘The most important living science-fiction writer in the country’
THE TIMES

‘The best SF writer in Britain’
SFX

Praise for The NASA Trilogy:

‘VOYAGE is, quite simply, a brilliant book . . . skilfully constructed and enthrallingly told’
SFX

‘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

‘A plausible tale of America’s last gasp at interplanetary exploration... Stephen Baxter proves what a cosmic thinker he is’
WASHINGTON POST

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Voyager
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0002246740
• ISBN 13: 9780002246743
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 500