Titan

FROM OUR EDITORS

Baxter is the most exciting new hard science fiction writer in years, and seems well-positioned to inherit the mantle of Arthur C. Clarke. His earlier novels have ranged from Wellsian Victorian novels to far-future hard SF to realistic reimaginings of the space program. Titan is his most unusual novel yet -- starting with a near-future proposal by a desperate and underfunded NASA to send a one-way manned expedition to the moon Titan, where there may be signs of life. But before it's over, it takes the reader through a whole series of adventures, from a frightening fundamentalist dystopia in the U.S. to a distant future parable of evolution. It's fair to say that few readers will have any clue of what's coming next in this ambitious novel.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The dream begins with a disaster. Given the task of dismantling NASA's aging shuttle program after a horrifying re-entry crash, Paula Benacerraf comes up with a bold plan to keep America in space using existing technology. Possible signs of organic life have been found on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Inspired by this, Benacerraf assembles an unlikely group of visionaries for a dinner party in Houston, and presents them with a mission proposal so preposterous, yet so plausible, that it renders them speechless - then sets them arguing far into the night.. "And so begins a new era in space exploration.. "The crew includes an aging NASA fly-boy; a JPL "double-dome" genius obsessed with extraterrestrial life; a pair of Skylab astronauts who became secret lovers in orbit; and Paula herself, the first grandmother to leave the inner solar system.. "The ship is patched together from the remnants of fifty years of spaceflight; Mercury and Gemini hardware, a stripped-down Columbia-class shuttle, a Skylab hab module, a couple of Apollo capsules, and a battery of refurbished F-1 engines - plus some surplus Soviet Topaz nuclears.. "The destination is Titan.. "The billion-mile voyage, the most stupendous in human history, takes most of a decade, and includes a "slingshot" transit of Venus, a catastrophic solar storm, and a constant struggle to keep the ailing systems up and the tiny crew together. Back home, it is a decade that will see the USA dismantled, the Earth engulfed in environmental collapse, and the Chinese conquering space with disastrous results for the human race.. "But it is on the icy surface of Titan itself that the true adventure begins. For it is here, in the orange methaneslush, under the awesome rings of Saturn, that the Discovery astronauts are to discover the secret of life's origins, and reach for human destiny beyond their wildest dreams.

FROM THE CRITICS

New Scientist

Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Robert Heinlein succeeded . . . and now Stephen Baxter joins their exclusive ranks, writing science fiction in which the science is right. A sheer pleasure to read!

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