Customer Reviews

The Wreck of the Titan or Futility

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Futility is a story about a huge ocean liner called the "Titan" which was the largest and most luxurious ship in the world. The Titan hits an iceberg on its starboard side and sinks in the icy North Atlantic during the month of April. I wanted to read this story because it was believed by some that this story would foretell the sinking of the Titanic 14 years later. I found parts of the book to be interesting; but I had a hard time trying to follow all of the events without rereading some of the pages. At one point, I put the book down because it became a little boring at times. Overall, Futility is a good book to read, and no doubt was a good sea adventure in 1898! I cannot really say there is any similarities to the way the "Titan" sank compared to the Titanic disaster. I gave this book 4 stars, because Morgan Robertson spoke of important nautical terms (like the Titan's 19 watertight compartments, triple screw expansion,etc). These were on ocean liners of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Futility is not the best book I have ever read, but I think it was a pretty good one. It is hard not to try to compare the events unfolding in Futility and compare it to the events leading up to the sinking of Titanic; since the two events are similiar. It is a story that any Titanic enthusiast or historian must read!

John Rowland is a man in much reduced straights. Once an officer on a U.S. Naval warship, he fell in love with a woman who ultimately rejected him, and then descended into alcoholism at the cost of everything. Things might be looking up, when he finds himself a berth as a common sailor aboard the brand new passenger liner Titan, the largest, fastest, most technologically advanced ship afloat. However, when Rowland witnesses the Titan ramming and sinking a smaller ship during the night, he realizes he must stand for what is right. Things become much worse, when the Titan sinks after ramming an iceberg, and Rowland finds himself one of the few survivors, along with the captain. This is Rowland's time of to realize the futility of his former life, and to stand tall.

This book was written in 1898, and is of historical interest for the number of similarities between the ship in the story and the Titanic, which sank some fourteen years later. Both the Titan and the Titanic were on their maiden voyages, both had watertight compartments (which made collision a smaller worry), both carried as few lifeboats as the law allowed, both sailed in April heading for New York, both struck icebergs around midnight, and both sank with heavy loss of life.

The story in the book is good, not great, but good. If it hadn't been for the Titanic similarities, it probably wouldn't be remember today. Overall I found the story unconvincing, but nonetheless a good read. Also, I found the similarities between the Titan and Titanic somewhat superficial. If you are looking for a pre-telling of the Titanic story, then you will be quite disappointed.

Therefore, I would give this book a rather qualified recommendation.

What "Titanic" buff hasn't heard of the infamous story of the "Titan?" Here, at a very reasonable price, is a chance to actually read the fiticious story which has been unavailable for so long. Unfortunately, once having read the story, most will find it a minor disappointment.

"Futility" is not the epic story of a shipwreck. Indeed, the actual wreck and sinking of the "Titan" takes place over the course of only five paragraphs.

Rather than a maritime disaster, the title "Futility" refers to the events surrounding the main character, John Rowland, before, on and after the "Titan." Morgan Robertson (the author) uses the ship and wreck only to establish a circumstance in which Rowland's true character can be contrasted with the hypocracy of Victorian society.

"Futility" is a novella, easily readable in about two hours. Robertson's writing is flowery by modern standards but always intelligible. After reading it, most are likely to understand why the book has been out of print for so long: it is not great literature. It is, however, part of the "Titanic" legend and therefor deserves to be on every "Titanic" buff's shelf.

My strongest complaint with the 100th Anniversary Edition is the complete absence of editing. Mis-spellings abound and words are obviously omitted. Spell-check doesn't catch syntax errors or word substitutions such as "to" for "two." We've all come to accept and expect this sloppiness in e-mail and on web-sites, but the printed word deserves closer scrutiny and better acuracy.

Do buy the book. Be aware of what it isn't.

History is clear. April 15, 1912, the White Star luxury liner Titanic, on its much anticipated and publicized maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, collided with an iceberg somewhere in the freezing North Atlantic. Several hours later, the Titanic sank beneath its icy-cold waters. Over 1500 people were killed. In 1898, fourteen years before this horrifying tragedy, an American author by the name Morgan Robertson penned a short novel called Futility, which told the tale of a mammoth British liner doomed to strike an iceberg in the North Atlantic, killing nearly all on board. His ill-fated ship was named the Titan. This, nine years before the Titanic was ever conceived. An odd coincidence, maybe, but one peculiar enough to elicit goosebumps on the flesh of even the greatest skeptics of the paranormal. What is absolutely chilling is that Robertson's Titan was in fact nearly identical, detail for detail, to the true-life Titanic. From the vessels' time of sailing to their top speeds, from their dimensions to the number of passengers aboard, statistical data on both ships are hauntingly alike. Morgan Robertson, who died in 1915, surprisingly never received much acclaim or reputation for his book, and very little else is known about the man who claimed to have been inspired by an "astral writing partner". It is known, however, that he wrote fourteen novels, all ocean-faring adventures (Robertson himself spent his early life at sea). In addition to Futility, Beyond the Spectrum has also been included in the book you are now holding. It is yet another eerie example of his premonition, a short story alluding to a terrible war between the Japanese and Americans, as well as the use of secret super-radiation weapons. This, some forty-one years before the start of World War II, not to mention almost fifty years before the invention of the atomic bomb. Still odd coincidence? Enjoy.

I first learned of this book when reading Walter Lord's famous "A Night to Remember," which was of course later released as a fine film of the same name, and which Lord updated in the early 1980s with the wonderful follow-up novel, "The Night Lives On." At the beginning of "A Night to Remember," Lord alludes generously to Robertson's novel "Futility," about the fictional ship 'Titan' and its uncanny resemblence to the 'Titanic' both in physical dimensions and tragic sinking. From Lord's brief synopsis of Robertson's novel, I got the impression that "Futility" would be a comprehensive novel that went to great lengths to describe the ship (Titan), passengers, crew, disaster, and aftermath. I was very surprised when I opened the shipping box and instead received a very skimpy novelette, weighing in at a whole forty pages or so.

Although "Futility" does have eerie similarities with the actual Titanic disaster, which makes it immediately of high historical novelty value, as a stand-alone novel in its own right it is simply not a very well-written piece of fiction. It has some nice ideas that should have been further developed. The cataclysmic sinking of the Titan is contained in about 1/3 a page, and amounts to "struck an iceberg, fell flat on her side, the end."

Amazingly, the extreme cold of the North Atlantic never seems to be an issue, as it is never mentioned. The story centers around a disgraced former US navy officer who, after his fall, became an ordinary seaman on the Titan. The plot revolves around his love affair (or lack of one) with a former girlfriend. The story is filled with cheesy dialog (even for 1890s Victorian standards) and interminable soliloquies that will have the reader rolling his or her eyes and going "whatever."

The plot of this story can be summed up thus:

- Titan is a huge ship and represents Victorian decadence
- Rowlands (the disgraced officer) loves some girl who's married to someone else
- Girl mistakenly thinks Rowlands is trying to murder her toddler
- Ship hits iceberg
- Ship founders two paragraphs later
- Rowlands rescues his ex girlfriend's toddler
- Rowlands somehow defeats a 2,000 lb polar bear in hand to hand combat
- no one gets hypothermia
- the end.



This story is interesting insofar as its similarity to the Titanic disaster, but beyond that, it is doggerel.

This book was a surprise. After reading other reviews I didn't think it would be that great. I was pleased that the plot was thicker than I was expecting and the similarlites to the Titanic were really amazing. I wanted to read it because of my interest in the Titanic and to read this book that was written more than 10 years before the Titanic sank made it even better. The plot and characters were interesting and all in all it was a good read.

This book predicts the Titantic disaster 14 years before the Titanic sinks. Morgan Robertson predicts everything that will happen to the Titanic. Robertson predicts the the ship's size, how many passengers (rich and poor), how many lifeboats, which side of the ship the iceberg hits and how many people die when the ship takes its final plunge to the ocean floor. The book also predicts the inquieries which take place after the sinking.

According to http://www.im.gte.com/titanic/fof.html: English writer Morgan Robertson wrote Futility, an imaginary account of a collision between a large trans-Atlantic oceanliner and an iceberg on her maiden voyage to New York. He called his ship the Titan. Did he cash in on the disaster? Hardly. Robertson published his book in 1898--14 years before the Titanic sank. Robertson later wrote a book, Beyond the Spectrum, that described a future war fought with aircraft that carried "sun bombs". Incredibly powerful, one bomb could destroy a city, erupting in a flash of light that blinds all who look at it. The war begins in December, started by the Japanese with a sneak attack on Hawaii. . . .

one of the strangest books I've ever read. It has so much in common with Titanic it isn't funny. More like a prophesy book. Everything in this book is almost the same as Titanic: The names of the ships, where the iceberg hit, number of passengers, number of lifeboats, month of maiden voyage and sinking, number of propellars and the length of the ship. I suggest you read this if you want to see one of the weirdest of the many pyschic foretellings of the Titanic disaster. Very, very strange how much Titanic and the Titan (in the book) have in common...

In 1898, and English author named Morgan Robertson published a novel about a huge new ocean liner. The ship was far larger than any that had ever been built. The fictional characters on board were mostly the rich and famous. The ship set off on its first voyage. Halfway across the Atlantic, on a cold night in April, the make-believe ship hit and iceberg and sank. There was great loss of life.

Robertson's book, entitled Futility, did not do well. Few people read it. Few people even knew about it.

Certainly not the owners of the White Star Shipping Line.

Fourteen years after the publication of the book, White Star built what was then the largest ocean liner in the world. In nearly every way, it was almost exactly like the one in Robertson's novel. Both were around 800 feet long and weighed between 60 and 70 thousand tons. Both vessels had triple propellers and could make 24 to 25 knots. Both could carry about 3,000 people, and both had enough lifeboats for only a fraction of this number. But, then, this wasn't supposed to matter; both ships were said to be "unsinkable."

On April 10, 1912, the real ship left England on her first voyage. On board were some of the richest and most famous people in the world. On a cold April night, about halfway across the Atlantic, the ship struck and iceberg. With great loss of life, she sank.

The real ship, of course, was the Titanic. As for the name of the imaginary ship, the author called it the Titan.

Taken from a book entitled "Amazing True Stories" by Don L. Wolffson