Nick Harkaway

Titans are a group (mostly family) of post-humans who have had their lives extended (some voluntarily, some involuntarily) by a procedure that rejuvenates their bodies by causing them to re-grow. So they become physically bigger and stronger, but also suffer partial memory loss. Titans can live effectively forever by repeating the process. The more times the procedure, the more the effects accumulate. They have become a separate incredibly wealthy elite, mostly untouchable by human rules and morality, physically untouchable, ethically and mentally distant.

A titan is murdered (unheard of!) and so enter Cal Saunders, a private eye specializing in cleaning up messes involving titans. He has to pick his way through the internal politics and machinations of the titans w/o getting himself killed. And, true to the noir genre dealing with an ex who is now a titan.

It is a pretty straight-forward power-family internal politics murder mystery given an SF flavor by throwing in the T7 process that creates titans from humans.… (mere)

I really liked this noir mystery that wasn’t just gritty for the look of it. The influence of T7 and Titans on society was great food for thought, and I spent a bit of time wondering what being “human” would mean in such a world.

The entire story’s told in first person, present tense by Sounder. He’s an interesting character to follow around and competent without being smug or suspiciously lucky. I did initially wonder if he was hiding something special about himself to be doing the kind of job he was, but there were no gotcha moments of that sort.

I enjoyed the other characters a lot. They all felt like they were living their own lives with their own murky motivations rather than their actions revolving around Sounder and his case.

Overall, plenty to get your teeth into in this SF noir.… (mere)