Rhett C. Bruno’s Titanborn imagines a world 300 years after a near-miss extinction event, when a meteorite nearly ended humanity. His world is smaller than ours, with most people concentrated along the continental ridges and in long, strung out cities. Most animals and plants are extinct. A group of people escaped Earth before the meteorite strike, fled to Saturn’s large moon Titan and set up society there.
World Building and Back Story
Folks left alive on Earth adapted. The nominal government is the USF but mega corporations hold the real power, including summary capital punishment.
Lead character Malcolm Graves is a Collector, one of the men Pervenio corporation sends out to enforce its rules – by any means necessary. Malcolm is happy to kill or capture, whichever gives him the biggest paycheck.
Titanborn opens with Malcolm tracking down an asteroid miner with delusions of owning his own destiny and the leader of a proto union that is on strike. Pervenio can’t have miners strike (nor people thinking they can run their own show) so send Malcolm to kill or capture the culprit. Instead the miner leader blows out the atmospheric seal, killing himself, the Pervenio security team, and dozens of others. Malcolm isn’t happy and his boss is even less happy and orders Malcolm on vacation.
Pervenio expanded to Titan about 100 years before the novel opens to extract gasses from Saturn’s atmosphere and use the water in the rings and on Titan. Pervenio exploited the original Titan colonists and the new residents brought diseases that sent many Titan dwellers into brutal quarantine where they die. The original colonists are not happy with the situation.
The idea of a world controlled by corporations or colonists dominated by the home planet is not new, but Bruno does a good job building on these themes. We get a sense of Titanborn’s imagined physical earth, colder and far less beautiful, crowded with people concentrated in narrow bands along maglev lines. Author Bruno built his world economically and politically and touched lightly on social dynamics or nature. I inferred that most Earth people were reasonably happy and content with the situation, not particularly upset by the corporate control and not concerned with much beyond today.
Characters
Unfortunately I didn’t like either of the two main characters, Malcolm Graves or Zhaff the freakish Spock-like new agent. Malcolm cares about nothing much beyond himself and drinking. He dreams of the big payoff he’ll get for settling the Titan problem but it’s clear he has no idea what to do with the money, no intention to leave Collecting for a peaceful life, no notion of what he wants beyond the thrill of chasing malcontents, sex and drinking.
Zhaff is a highly trained operative with little personality. (In fact I thought the big reveal might be that he is an android.) He wears an eye lens that connects to his nerves and calmly announces to Malcolm that he has an unusually small amygdala, the part of the brain that handles emotions. He is there as a foil for Malcolm.
Plot
The plot is straightforward combination of shoot-em-up, detecting and betrayal. The final twist was not a surprise, I think any reader would see that come a long way ahead, right about half way into the novel. I didn’t feel tension or much conflict or suspense, a bit pedestrian for a science fiction story with such an interesting premise and sound background.
Summary
Malcolm tells the story first person so we experience what he does, feel what he feels. Unfortunately, although the world building is top notch, the plot is workmanlike and the characters are unpleasant enough that I didn’t much enjoy being inside Malcolm’s head, seeing and feeling along with him. If Bruno had created a more likable character this would be a fine novel. As it is, I have to give it a gentleman’s C+, 3 stars.
I received an advance copy through NetGalley at no charge in exchange for an honest review.
