There is but one group of readers who will be satisfied with Mr. Baxter's Titan, those readers who think, as he does, that science fiction is nothing more than orgiastic expressions of geekdom. Titan is an idea and nothing more. It doesn't have a purpose. Its characters barely grow. Hell, its villains, such as they are, have utterly incomprehensible motives until the reader realizes that the story has to be advanced forward somehow and that this monumental lifting has to fall to someone. This is geekdom, plain and simple, a quality idea dredged up from the mind of a scientist and put to paper with little thought of what to wrap around it; a hotdog with no bun. For those of you still interested in such plain fare...
In a near future America on the march towards religious zealotry -- because that's original! --, funding is being cut from the space program. In a last ditch effort to explore the solar system, a collection of astronauts and scientists hatch a plan to cannibalize the remaining extraorbital craft to build a single ship that will travel a select group of them to Saturn's moon, Titan, where they will live out their days, exploring and researching, knowing they cannot return home. Though there's an admirable kind of scientific existentialism about this one-way mission, and though some may find the human relations among the crew of some note, the story runs out of legs once the mission reaches Titan. Mr. Baxter's tale concludes with a coda so ridiculous, so disconnected from the main thrust of his story, that it's not worth detailing here.
A story must be animated by something more than an idea. It has to be inflated by characters and their personalities. It has to be alive. And unfortunately, Mr. Baxter has only simulated life in Titan. There is no true genesis. (1/5 Stars)
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