I purchased this book nearly 10 years ago. I read it when I bought it and a few times again through the proceeding years. I just recently finished this book less than three weeks ago.
First of all it's an enjoyable read, but, can also be quite frightening sometimes. Not in a Stephen King-horror sort of frightening, but, this book has some scary themes in it concerning people. What's also very frightening is, even though the book is fictional, some of the events that are portrayed in this novel have come true.
Titan starts off with the landing of the Huygens probe onto the surface of Saturn's largest moon Titan. The Huygens probe finds evidence of possible life on the surface of the moon. During the time that the discovery is made, the 20-year-old Space Shuttle Columbia is in orbit around earth preparing for a landing with NASA's oldest rookie Paula Benacerraf and its youngest moonwalker onboard. During the landing procedures, the oldest of all of NASA's shuttles fails resulting in the deaths of two members of the crew of seven and the almost complete end of the American manned space program. Also during this time, the Chinese are launching their first astronaut, a woman, into space. Bringing a boom of power to China.
After talking to the discoverer of the possible Titanian lifeforms at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Paula Benacerraf spearheads a one-way trip to Titan using Space Shuttle and Apollo Command Module technology. With the United States Air Force, a "Nullist" American look to everything scientific, and a fundamentalist Christian Texas politician gearing to become the next US president in 2009, the time to leave Earth is now for the five astronauts ready for Titan.
A seven year trip with solar storms, closed spaces, and unreliable 30-40 year old technology to deal with the crew of the Discovery have plenty of their hands to deal with.
On Earth everything is getting worse. The US and China are at war with each other. The new president is enforcing the teaching of Aristotelian Cosmology and turning what should be a glorious 21st Century into a technological Dark Ages. And the Chinese have one more ace up their sleeve.
On Titan the need to survive becomes an everyday pressure on the Discovery crew.
Even with the very dark overtones of this novel, I give Titan a 4.0/5.0. One of Baxter's best works. It makes one think what should humanity really do with itself. One of my favorite books from my collection. A very good read for the "Hard SF" reader or someone who likes to get unnerved by what humanity can do to itself.
