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Titan by Ben Bova
02/08/2008 . Source: Rod MacDonald 
audio CD. pub: Audio Renaissance/PanMacmillan. 14 hours. 12 CDs. Price: $49.95 (US), $67.95 (CAN) ISBN: 1-59397-502-3)read by: Stephen Hoye, Amanda Karr and Stefan Rudnicki. Buy Titan in the USA - or Buy Titan in the UK  check out websites: http://us.macmillan.com/Book.aspx?isbn=9781593975029 and www.benbova.net
When first observing Saturn through a telescope some 40 years ago, apart from the magnificent ring system, my attention was captured by an enigmatic object situated not far away from the planet. Appearing nothing more than a bright orange coloured star, observations made over several nights showed that it was obviously connected in some way to Saturn. This was Titan, Saturn's largest satellite, then considered to be the largest moon in the Solar System. Ganymede of Jupiter was later shown to be bigger. More curious, Titan had an atmosphere. This is the only satellite in the Solar System to have an atmosphere of any description other than a smattering of rarefied gas. In fact, Titan's atmosphere is more dense than Earth's and spectral analysis showed that it contains the building blocks for life to evolve.
Later investigations from the Voyager space probes confirmed that Titan indeed had an atmosphere but it was a cloudy one which obscured the surface. Draw a veil over something and immediately human imagination goes into overdrive. What lies beneath the clouds? The same questions were asked of the planet Venus with speculation varying from tropical jungle to arid desert only for us to discover that it was the nearest thing to hell we could imagine.
In order to discover what lay beneath the atmosphere, the Cassini mission to Saturn deployed the Huygens space probe which descended through the clouds and soft landed, taking pictures as it went on its way. It revealed a strange alien world which had a chemistry deemed suitable for the emergence of life. The only problem was, that at almost minus 200° Celsius, chemical reactions are excruciatingly slow and any life that had emerged, even after 4 billion years, would be no more than the very simplest of forms. Yet, it would still be life! That's the key word!
It is into this scenario that Ben Bova takes us in his novel 'Titan', which is a sequel to 'Saturn' reviewed in last month's edition of SFCrowsnest. In many ways, 'Saturn' was a rather tortured and turgid affair. The basic plot of having a colony ship of 10,000 souls sent out into the depths of the Solar System was, in my opinion, a flawed concept and one really devoid of reality. However, in the sequel, we are stuck with the same colony ship, the Goddard, and all its baggage endlessly turning in space. Unfortunately, it wasn't struck by a meteor, perhaps leaving a more manageable half a dozen characters.
Arthur C. Clarke's novel '2001: A Space Odyssey' went to Saturn without all the trouble experienced by the Goddard, leaving aside of course Hal 9000's psychiatric problems. In Ben Bova's 'Titan', it is a space probe which takes a similar turn. The essence of the novel is that in order to investigate the possibility of life on Titan, a space probe is deployed rather in the same manner that Huygens was deployed by Cassini. Unfortunately, it didn't reply and we are left wondering as to why this was the case.
Giving a space probe the ability to think isn't always a good idea. To reveal any more would ruin the story but this is only a small part of the novel. The rest of it is made up of the machinations of the Goddard. Actually, it's rather like a soap opera in space. Including 'Saturn', this amounts to a couple of large novels devoted mainly to soap opera. The fact that it takes place in space is immaterial. It's really got nothing to do with 'Saturn' or 'Titan'. It could have taken place anywhere in the Solar System or even in 'Peyton' Place' or 'Coronation Street'. In nature, it was a bit Orwellian 'Animal Farm' fodder but not so clever. Frankly, it wasn't very interesting and was even boring in parts.
I was looking forward to 'Titan' with great expectations. I anticipated weird and wonderful things would happen but they didn't. Unfortunately, the lumbering spaceship just rolled on and on, contrived and pointless in its existence. The novel did not end but, hopefully, the Goddard will not emerge again in the future.
All this was a great pity because the audio presentation was very good. The narrators did their best to get the most out of the novel and to their merit they achieved this with some success. Unfortunately, the material did not live up to their talents. Purchase this by all means if you want to proceed with Ben Bova's 'Grand Tour' or if only for the sake of a continued collection, but be warned, it is not one of his best.
Rod MacDonald
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