Titan [Paperback]

Stephen Baxter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 3, 1998

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.

Editorial Reviews

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

About the Author

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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 592 pages
• Publisher: Voyager (August 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006498116
• ISBN-13: 978-0006498117
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,401 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Believable story with many unexpected twists, February 2, 2005

By 

Ratqueen "Carole" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Titan (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a big fan of alternate histories and hard sci-fi set in the not too far future, where the science is based on facts and the story rings true, and on that Titan delivers!

Many reviewers pointed out that Titan is a depressing book, where things only go from bad to worse. I didn't see things that way at all. I saw it more as a faithful reflection of what things may have been like should a manned spaced mission to Titan have really existed. Yes, bad things happen in this story, but isn't it what makes it more realistic and believable? If you like stories where the hero always wins and you *know* that nothing really bad can ever happen to any of the main characters - a book with few surprises - then you indeed won't enjoy Titan.

Very typical of Baxter's "what if" scenarios, the idea of the book is based on the real life Cassini-Huygens space mission to Saturn and Titan launched in 1997. Only in Baxter's story, the spacecraft - a remodeled space shuttle - carries humans.

The beginning of the book, while introducing the astronauts that will be part of the mission, explains the different technical and political aspects and issues attached to it. Sprinkled with human error and emotions in those confined quarters, the actual 7-year voyage to Titan is very believable, and appropriately builds up the anticipation as years go by.

Will they successfully land on Titan? What will they find there? Does Earth still care? What will happen to them? These questions, and many more, will keep you turning the pages.

The ending will surprise you.

Titan is a fantastic read that will keep you thinking for a while!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If You Want To Go To Titan, Saturn's Moon, This Book is the Next Best Thing to Being There, November 10, 2005

By 

Antinomian (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Titan (Mass Market Paperback)

Possibly, like others interested in science, there were two key disappointing moments in my life that came from knowledge derived from science. One was that it is unlikely to go backwards in time by any known method. The other is that it is unlikely that there's life on Mars or elsewhere in our solar system outside of earth, let alone intelligent life. So that when learning more details about this and reading that the largest moon of Saturn, Titan, has an atmosphere, and well, maybe organic molecules that are the precursor to life, it was as an exciting moment as possible for the possibility of life in our solar system outside of earth. Since then, I had always hoped to write a story about Titan. Well Stephen Baxter has written that book, and as far as I'm concerned no other book strictly about Titan need ever be written. This book is so accurate to what's presently known about Titan, that whenever I read any news about Titan I think back and refer to this book. The thing against this book is that it's written somewhat dryly. However, I've read quite a bit of other sources about Titan, newspaper articles, journals, websites, etc, and if you want to feel what it's like to be on Titan, this is the item to read. Now, this book was written in 1997, but it uncannily predicts some of events that have occurred. Baxter predicts the destruction of one of the space shuttles in a fashion similar to what occurred with Columbia. He writes about the politics of NASA, which I read up on and it's somewhat accurate, and he predicts on what NASA would have to do to go to Titan, such as borrowing parts from the soon to be discontinued Space Shuttle program to be used for the forthcoming Crew Expeditionary Vehicle (CEV), and so is in some ways similar to the present USA Return to the Moon and Mission to Mars programs that's now occurring within NASA instituted by president Bush. And he is right up to date on the methods now in the works to look for earth sized planets in other solar systems that I had personal first hand knowledge about. You want to go to Titan? reading this book is the next best thing that exists to being there. To me, 3 stars is average, 4 stars is great, and 5 stars is superb. I'd give Baxter's Titan 3-1/2 stars for good, but will tilt it upward to 4.

I was going to submit the above, but then read some of the other reviews that touched on topics I thought about as well but didn't mention. Yes, the book can be considered to have somewhat of a Liberal bent; that instead of a US president that goes to church on Sunday, it's a religious fundamentalist. But this is not uncommon in the written world and is much, much less than in many other books. The part about the US Air Force firing upon a United States spacecraft I thought was sad as well. I did find out that when NASA was formed in 1958 in response to Russia's Sputnik satellite launch, the Air Force did want to have this newly formed space agency under their control. But US president Eisenhower made it a civilian agency. However, I cannot imagine an officer of the United States Air Force, who spent his career in defense of the United States, would ever treasonously consider setting up the destruction of an impressive multi-billion dollar United States spacecraft designed to travel to a site beyond the earth's moon. I certainly hope Baxter doesn't think that, even being British, and instead exaggerated for dramatic effect. There is unfortunately an anti-intellectual, anti-evolutionary (despite that the immense amount of evidence in support of evolution) in the United States. However anti-science is everywhere in the US, even amongst so called intellectuals, and there could be documented photos of alien life crawling on Titan and there would still be a lot of people from everywhere screaming bloody hell if the idea came up to launch to Titan. The politics and culture of the near-future-world set up by Baxter are more of a backstory and really can be ignored. So to me, I don't necessarily find the book depressing, on the contrary, for Baxter to consider any possibility whatsoever with realism to launch a spacecraft to Titan I consider to be incredibly positive!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Gloomy and wonderless, July 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Titan (Mass Market Paperback)

Titan is a frustrating book because it is obvious that Baxter could've spun a believable and moving tale. The science, as far as I can tell, is accurate, and the mission to Titan, cleverly orchestrated. Why is it so frustrating? Because the message is unrelentlessly negative and pessimistic, and there isn't a single likable character in his very very long tale. One wonders what motivates Stephen Baxter, because if this book is any indication, it appears that everything is dismal and worthless to him. In his world, no one has a sense of wonder, humor, or hope. He complains through one character after another, that the current generation no longer cares about science and space exploration. All they truly care about are themselves, and oh yeah, the internet. He's relentlessly negative about that, too. Even the heroes and heroines of the mission to Titan, spend page after page complaining and whining to one another, with no encouraging words, love, or friendship shared among them. They are on a mission to another world for heaven's sake, you'd think they'd be a little ~excited~ about it. Once they finally get to Titan (a ~7 year trip through space), it's described as a hostile and bitterly cold hell of little to no scientific value. They begin to ask themselves why they bothered to go at all. After reading this novel, an unencouraging, dreary, pessimistic, and humorless adventure, you'll ask yourself why you bothered to tag along.

As a side note, take a trip to SETI@home and check out the downloads (>700 000 at last count), or the keen interest in NASAs Pathfinder Project to Mars, and then tell me people don't care about the universe around them.