- Kroese, Robert.
Titan (Mammon vol. 1).
Grand Rapids MI: St. Culain Press, 2021.
ASIN B09DDHZ4R7.
-
With each successive work, science fiction author Robert Kroese
is distinguishing himself not just as one of the most
outstanding writers in the genre today, but also one of the most
versatile. He seems to handily jump from laugh-out-loud satire
worthy of Keith Laumer in novels like
Starship Grifters (February 2018),
cerebral quantum weirdness in
Schrödinger's Gat (May 2018),
to the meticulously researched alternative history time travel
Iron Dragon
epic (August 2018 et seq.). Now,
in the Mammon trilogy, of which this is the first
volume, he turns to the techno-economic-political thriller and,
once again, triumphs, with a work worthy of Paul Erdman and
Tom Clancy.
By 2036, profligate spending, exponentially growing debt, and
indiscriminate money printing trying to paper over the abyss, has
brought the United States to the brink of a cataclysmic
financial reckoning. Both parties agree only on increasingly
absurd stratagems to keep it from crashing down, and when
entrepreneur Kade Kapur offers salvation in the form of
a public-private partnership to exploit the wealth of the solar
system by mining near-Earth asteroids (as the only way to keep
grabby government from seizing his wealth), desperate politicians
are quick to jump in the lifeboat.
But they are politicians, and in a continental scale empire in
decline, populated by hundreds of millions of grifters and
layabouts, where the “rule of law” means the rule of
lawyers in dresses (judges) appointed by politicians, nothing
can be taken for granted, as Kade discovers when he chooses to
base his venture in the United States.
This is a compelling page turner and, once again, Kroese demonstrates
how thorough is the research behind these yarns. He not only gets
the economics of hyperinflation absolutely correct, but, in the
best tradition of science fiction, “shows, not tells”
the psychology which grips those experiencing it and how rapidly
the thin veneer of civilisation can erode when money dies.
This novel ends at a point that will leave you eager to discover
what happens next. Fortunately, we won't have all that long to wait:
book two in the series, Messiah,
will be published on February 28, 2022, and you can pre-order your
copy today.
