| Title | : | The Titan Probe (Ice Moon, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 326 |
| Publication | : | First published March 27, 2017 |
The Titan Probe is a stand-alone novel that follows the events from The Enceladus Mission.
The Titan Probe (Ice Moon, #2) Reviews
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|3,5*|
Der zweite Band der Serie ist eine gelungene Fortsetzung der Geschichte über den Saturns Eismond Enceladus. Nach den überraschenden Entdeckungen dort, werden nun auch erstaunliche Unregelmäßigkeiten auf dem ebenfalls den Saturn umkreisenden Mond Titan festgestellt.
Morris greift die Situation zum Ende des ersten Romans gekonnt auf und lässt neue Konflikte entstehen, die jedoch nicht zu konstruiert wirken. Die Handlung bleibt immer interessant und kann mit einigen unerwarteten Wendungen durchaus überraschen. Die Welten von Enceladus und Titan werden eingehend beschrieben und faszinieren durch ihre Fremdartigkeit aber auch gerade durch ihre Parallelen zur Erde. Die Geschehnisse bleiben zum allergrößten Teil im Bereich des physikalisch Möglichen und der Stand der Technik stellt eine plausible Prognose für die nähere Zukunft dar. Manchmal sind die realen Grundlagen für meinen Geschmack jedoch etwas zu ausführlich innerhalb der Geschichte dargelegt, weniger technisch interessierte Leser*innen werden sich vielleicht von den doch recht zahlreichen technischen Beschreibungen und Berechnungen abschrecken lassen.
Charakterlich wird hier keine Glanzleistung vollbracht. Die Charaktere wirken einfach nicht natürlich genug in ihrem Umgang miteinander. Sie haben jedoch gerade genügend Tiefe, dass sich der Lesende wirklich für deren Schicksal interessiert, besonders in diesem Genre keine Selbstverständlichkeit.
Die fremdartige Lebensform von Enceladus ist für meinen Geschmack etwas zu genau beschrieben worden, dabei geht das Geheimnisvolle etwas verloren. Auch ist sie mir doch zu menschlich geraten, wobei das Konzept einer vollständig kooperativen Lebensform im Gegensatz zum Wettkampf der Evolution durchaus ein interessantes Konzept ist.
Wer Fan von Sience-Fiction ist, wer den ersten Band gerne gelesen hat und wer ein großes technisches Interesse hat, wird auf jeden Fall auch mit diesem Buch viel Spaß haben. -
Good, solid read. A couple new characters, some new drama, some new scenarios. I enjoyed this one.
If that sounds a bit too positive for a 3-star review, well. There was one GLARING fault in the book that drove me up a wall. Two, actually. SPOILERS AHEAD. First, the scientist on earth has NO IDEA that his son is in space?!?!? I mean, I can understand estranged dads, etc., but seriously? Super-awesome space pioneers of international missions to meet new lifeforms tend to be well-known. The fact that somehow this astronomer doesn't know that his son is in space seems . . . a little far-fetched. The bigger fault, however, is the "back-from-the-dead" character reviving the author does, where the guy who comes back doesn't even know how he survived the 48 hours he lay, exposed, with a broken visor on an ice planet. There's some vague hint that the Enceladus Entity saved him, but nothing is ever explained. Drove me bonkers.
Anyways, this is seriously a good book, but a couple major omissions keep it from going on the all-time list. -
Awesome read! Was much more suspenseful and exciting than the first. The descriptions of all the different settings from space to the moons are so detailed and well written. This book had some crazy plot twists as well. Highly recommend
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Mucho mejor que el primero “misión Encelado”.
Continua donde dejamos a nuestros amigos y expande su aventura. El ritmo es muy bueno, y en mi caso devoré este tomo. Es hard SCIFI sin duda, aunque tambien tiene mucho de fantastico, y si te lo tomas de ese modo es muy muy disfrutable. Tiene sus fallitos perdonables y quizás el final demasiado abrupto, pero sin duda seguiré leyendo lo que este señor quiera contarme.
Por mi parte recomendadisimo si te gusta la scifi con buena dosis de ciencia y de fantasia. -
3.8| Der zweite Band seiner Eismond-Trilogie hat m.E. einen irreführenden Titel, nachdem die ILSE von Eceladus in Richtung Titan abgeflogen ist und dort vermeintlich ein Besatzungsmitglied tot auf dem Eisozean zurückgelassen werden musste, wird der Saturnmod Titan unter die Lupe genommen.
Trotzdem finden die wichtigsten Ereignisse und ein Großteil der Handlung weiterhin auf Enceladus statt, wohingehend nur ein geringer, m.E. ein unbedeutender Teil auf Titan selbst stattfindet, dahingehend ist der Titel etwas irreführend. Aber trotzallem bringt uns Brandon O. Morris (Matthias Matting) Titan näher; der Beginn des Romans ist eine genaue Schilderung der Landung der europäschen Sonde Huygens auf Titan im Januar 2005; nur das spekualtive Ende der Einführung führt uns in das Geschehen von "Titan" ein. Huygens sendet nämlich 40 Jahre (während des Aufenthalts von ILSE im Saturn-System) ein Signal zur Erde, was die NASA-Missionsplaner dazu bringt, eine Landung auf Titan zu unternehmen, um Huygens zu besuchen und nachzusehen, was sich mit dem Signal auf sich hat. Die CREW der ILSE ist immer noch in Trauer um Marchenko, der sich auf Enceladus geopfert hat, um zwei Besatzungsmitglieder aus einer ernsten Situation zu retten, die auf Erkundungsmission im Ozean von Enceladus auf außerirdisches Leben gestoßen sind.
Es stellt sich heraus, dass Marchenko doch nicht tot ist, sondern lebt und sich in das U-Boot flüchtet um zu überleben; er kann aber erst spät ein Signal zur Erde schicken, um sein Überleben mitzuteilen...
Alles in allem wieder ein spannender Roman von Morris, der in Punkto Stil und wissenschaftlicher Genauigkeit seinem Roman "Enceladus" in nichts nachsteht. Was aber immer mein Problem mit diesem Hard-Science Plot ist, dass die Unwahrscheinlichkeiten auch hier nicht reduziert wurden, z.B. dass die Kommandantin während des Fluges schwanger werden kann und ein Kind gebärt, oder dass das die Signale von Huygens und Marchenko nicht von der NASA oder anderen Raumfahrt-Organisationen aufgefangen wird sondern von einem Hobby-Astronom; dass eine Astronautin alleine eine kilometerweite Expediotion auf dem völlig unbekannten Titan unternimmt, während 2 Männer an Bord der Landekapsel bleiben und völlig unbedarft einem Phänomen gegenüberstehen, das an sich schon einen Abbruch der Expedtion geführt hätte usw. usf.
Es ist erfreulich, dass durch Philip P. Peterson nun auch Matthias Matting zur deutschen Hard Science SF gefunden hat, ein Genre, das hierzulande ein Schattendasein führt.
Schön auch der Wissenschafts-Teil am Ende des Buches, mit dem man in einer Kurzversion die neuesten Erkenntnisse über den faszinierenden Mond Titan erfährt... -
It Keeps Getting Better
I read this book as a continuation of my quest to see how truly alien intelligences could be described without falling into the anthropomorphic trap. This book succeeded well! I won't spoil it by explaining how, but to recommend that anyone who wants to read a wonderful series should read this one.
What trip it was to the surface of Titan and back to Enceladus of the previous volume! And what an ending! -
I can't do it. I just can't do it. There are simply too many questions left dangling.
Marchenko's ALIVE? Okay, obviously, the Enceladus lifeform somehow reanimated him (a life form it has NO previous experience with or knowledge of), but Morris leaves this dangling for far too long. We FINALLY got a hint to confirm this, but it's another implausibility; the lifeform patched Marchenko's visor with water ice. Which might be possible, since at the surface temperatures of Enceladus, water ice is "as hard as iron". But why didn't the suit heaters melt the ice from the inside? Would the patch really have stayed cold enough all the way through to prevent that? Again, I have question this.
Marchenko enters Valkyrie through the emergency exit, making a big point about letting out the internal atmosphere. And that it can't restore atmosphere after that until Marchenko closes the inner suitport hatches, that Martin and Jianying left open when they left the ship. But if they left the inner suitport hatches open when they opened the outer ones, why didn't the atmosphere escape then?
Then he repairs his visor (admittedly temporarily) with a clear plastic report cover? A flat piece of plastic on the curved surfaces of his visor/helmet? I challenge Morris to try the same and make it airtight.
Morris also mentions that the suits run at a full atmosphere internal pressure, so it would be even harder to fix the visor. Not to mention he made a point in Enceladus Mission that the suits run at LOW pressure, that's why the crew has to prebreathe before making EVAs.
And when he leaves the ship again through the emergency escape, I assume the atmosphere escaped again. So how can he immediately remove his suit when he returns? Doesn't he at least have to wait for it to re-pressurize? (And just how many times can it do that?)
He also keeps talking about "walking" in Enceladus' gravity of 1/84th Gee. That's 0.011G. He mentions in EM that you can't "walk" in gravity that low, it's more like moving in freefall, but here he keeps describing Marchenko as "walking".
And Marchenko's going to cobble together an ammonia-based thermal power generator? The self-professed non-scientist? I think that's awfully optimistic. Mark Watney pulls off similar feats in The Martian, but he's an engineer by training. Marchenko's a medical doctor.
The last straw was when he found a dead rat while retrieving the pipe to make the generator. Really? A dead rat? Morris tries to blow it off as somehow it got in during the test runs or while it was being transported on Earth, but I just don't buy it. I can't believe any credible space agency would be that careless. (Maybe I'm being optimistic, but that's still why I reject it.)
So I'm done. I really tried to get through these books because I want to read the overall story, but I can't. There are just too many contradictions, implausibilities and "Oh, come ON!"s. My suspension of disbelief is completely shattered, and I'm done. Maybe some of these problems are explained satisfactorily later in the story, but in my case, Morris waited too long to do so. -
Enceladus hatte mich ja voll vom Hocker gehauen und ich war gespannt, ob Titan mithalten kann. Spoileralarm: Konnte es!
Der Titel kann etwas verwirren, denn auch wenn wir einen kurzen Abstecher zum Titan machen, so spielt doch ein Großteil der Handlung auf der ILSE und auf Enceladus. Warum auf Enceladus möchte ich nicht verraten, denn das könnte Band 1 etwas spoilern.
Die Geschichte beginnt mit der Landung der Sonde Huygens auf Titan 41 Jahre vor der restlichen Handlung im Buch. Schön fand ich dabei wie bereits im ersten Band die Gedankenspielereien aus dem Bereich „Was wäre wenn?“ Wenn Huygens Gefühle gehabt hätte, was hätte es gefühlt bei seiner Landung? Ich sagte ja schon in einem anderen Post einmal, dass ich eine emotionale Bindung zu allen möglichen Dingen aufbauen kann. Es ist gut, dass Morris hier eiskalt das Ding als solches belässt und Menschen wie mir damit diese Gedankengänge abnimmt. Jaja, ich weiß, ich will nicht darüber nachdenken müssen, dass auf dem Mars kleine Rover rumrollen, die ganz, ganz alleine sind. Ich hab Wall-E gesehen und von Anfang bis Ende Rotz und Wasser geheult, ok?
Aber weiter im Text. Die ILSE befindet sich grad auf dem Heimweg von Enceladus. Die Trauer um den Verlust eines Crew-Mitglieds ist groß. Umso ungeduldiger wurde ich, als mir klar wurde, worauf alles hinauslaufen wird. Mit jedem Kapitel dachte ich mir nur noch „nu mach schon“ und wollte einfach ein riesiges großes Happy End. Das gabs zwar nicht direkt, aber irgendwie wars trotzdem Happy-cool 🙂 Der Teil der Geschichte auf Titan geriet dabei sogar fast etwas in den Hintergrund.
Besonders klasse fand ich das erneute Zusammentreffen mit dem Leben auf Enceladus und dessen Bewusstsein und Wissen um das Leben auf Titan und Io. Ich kann jetzt schon sagen, dass ich mich sehr drauf freue, den dritten Teil zu lesen.
In diesem Band gab es ein paar Elemente mehr, die sehr fantastisch wirkten, besonders im direkten Vergleich mit dem wissenschaftlichen Hintergrund des Buches. Auch ging manches Mal etwas viel zu einfach und zu fehlerfrei von statten, dass ich glaube, Morris wollte hier für den Leser die Spannung nicht noch weiter hochtreiben. Mein Herz sagt danke 🙂
Fazit
Eine rundum gelungene Fortsetzung zum ersten Teil und erneut eine klare Leseempfehlung für alle Fans des Hard SF -
Wow, this is unusual. I gave 2 stars to the first book in this series, and 4 stars here. Why? Because this time two things seemed lots better.
The first thing, I didn't feel like so much of my time was spent reading about how the room was decorated or how the ship was constructed as I did in the first book. Sure, those things are important, but let's make it quick! I have characters to follow!
And that's the second thing. I cared about the characters. In the first book I found Martin to be pretty short on emotions. Kind of like a cross between Mr Spock and an android. In this one I found him to be much more interesting, because of how he dealt with his father and his girlfriend.
I felt like they threw away the doctor's character in book 1. I mean, they might have said, "We have an infant. We can't risk the doctor." But they never said that, and he jumped out of a perfectly good spaceship. Ouch. But in this book I came to feel like his character was not wasted.
In the first book I had the impression that Martin might have a bit of a spark for the other women on the crew besides his girlfriend. In this book it felt like they were all colleagues, and I wasn't confused about where his interests lay.
Related to the second thing is that I found the Enceladus sentience very interesting, and after the first book I didn't know if we'd ever get to know it better. This book was very satisfying in that regard. I know that there is still an antenna on Enceladus and I can't wait to see it get used.
I'm glad that I stayed with the series. I'm not saying that Mr Morris improved between books. I'm just saying that I liked this book as much as I disliked the last one.
For sure I'm gonna read the next one. -
This review addresses the entire series of The Enceladus Mission, which consists of four full-length novels: The Enceladus Mission, The Titan Probe, The Io Encounter, and Return to Enceladus. Read in sequence as most characters traverse all four books, as does the story.
Plot. A group of astronauts from several countries responds to a probe signal coming from the moon of a distant planet indicating potential life. Through the four novels, space travel is defined in painfully intricate detail. The entire series consists of a series of mundane problems, occasionally life-threatening, that arise with regularity - one after another. Expected relationships between characters develop, including a pregnancy. Shipboard AI's misbehave, save the day, stuff goes wrong, stuff gets fixed, etc.
Liked. The Enceladus Mission series is pure SciFi. The "what-if" possibilities are there, which in my opinion, makes the best SciFi. No drooling zombies, aliens with clicking knees, jump scares. No sex, no gratuitous profanity. Coincidently? Breakthrough Enceladus is a proposed privately funded astrobiology mission to look for macrobiotic life in the volcanic eruptions of water emanating from the moon - true - Google it.
Not so hot. Wording isn't particularly smooth - no contractions; more effort should have been applied to story rather than space technology, which can be boring to some readers. The ending left much unanswered.
Written by Brandon Q. Morris, narrated by Doug Tisdale Jr., each book in the area of eight hours of listening, all books released 2019.
Recommended to the nerds among us; lots of techy stuff to pick apart. -
When I bought and read the precursor to this book I did not realise at the time that it was part of a series. I enjoyed The Enceladus Mission immensely therefore I looked forward to returning to the outer Solar System and visiting Titan with Brandon Q. Morris.
Again, a well-researched hard science fiction novel that presents a plausible version of a manned visit to Titan. Morris created a truly alien alien in the first book of the series and he does it again here. I shall not give further details away; it is better to read about it in the book.
The action is split between the two moons of Titan and Enceladus. We meet again Enceladus' resident entity, which reveals it knows about life on other moons in the outer Solar System. This does rather contradict that it had no concept of other life in The Enceladus Mission. It does give some obvious foreshadowing of what is to come on Io to the reader. Maybe it knew about what was happening on Titan but the meteorite did not drop until the humans arrived? The writing could have been a little tighter here...
The science fiction took a soft turn towards the end, which surprised me. I am sure the author had his reasons and I am sure I shall find out on ILSE's stop over at Io on the way back home.
A few minor niggles reduced my rating to four stars but apart from that an excellent read for anyone whoo likes their science fiction hard. -
For those of you who read "Enceladus", you will be re-united with the same great crew of the ILSE as they are sent to Titan to check on some anomalous radio signals. While there, the crew is presented with many challenges and experiences several surprises as well. They deal with many scientific issues as well as group & personal issues as they work toward completing hteir mission. Even though many of the questions regarding Titan have get answered (and several more have been raised), the adventure is not over. Apparently, the ILSE is being sent to Io next in "The Io Encounter", book 3 in the series.
I am becoming a fan of Brandon Q. Morris. His stories are enjoyable; his characters are well-developed,and, his science is both accurate and interesting. This 2nd book in the series is every bit as enjoyable as the first and the reader continues to become more engaged with the crew. I particularly like Morris' extrapolations that are based on solid science. Morris is truly a hard science writer who also has the ability to develop characters and tell a good story at the same time. A great bonus is included at the end of each of his books where he presents science facts that are relevant to the story. The bonus in this book talks about Titan. -
I will assume you have read the synopsis already so I will skip that. The book is very good, it continues the story from the first book and in no way wraps up the story, it does however take a pretty big twist that could be a good thing or a bad thing, we will have to read the next book to find out. I get a little annoyed with books that end and feel more like a chapter ending than a book ending. On the other hand, I hate book that end with 20 years later everyone lived happily ever after so I guess I would rather this style. Its also just a fact of publishing now that one long story is broken down into multiple books.
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A trip to the moons of Saturn.
They say that fact is stranger than fiction. What if you combine the two? Morris does an awesome job of taking actual facts and weaving in an imagined space flight . A positive for me was learning actual facts about two moons of Saturn. This is done in a way that works in with the story of the voyages. I don't know where this is going but a negative for me was falling back on the cliche of an alien entity in a computer system. Oh well, I try to be flexible reading sci-fi and so we will see Morris takes us. -
I did not care for this book any more than its part one predecessor. Things just did not add up for me. For one, the doctor, Machenko, was killed in book one when his helmet visor was broken when he landed on the moon. Then book two begins with him pulling himself up out of a crevasse. Then the book gets more weird, to me, as the story progresses. Then the book just ends with them about to leave the orbit of one of the moons. Many have said they liked it but not me.
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Maravillosa descripción de Titán. Me resultó un libro muy emocionante, principalmente por la posibilidad de vida en esta luna de Saturno. Es bueno que se consideren inteligencias o posibles inteligencias totalmente ajenas a lo que somos.
Sin embargo, lo que no me convenció del todo, aunque sí me intrigó y me dio mucha curiosidad, fue lo de Marchenko (su posible no muerte). De todas maneras, creo que es algo que engancha, aunque sea para ver cómo o por qué. -
Dieses zweite Buch der Serie von der Geschichte her sogar noch besser gefallen hat als das erste, aber ein paar Ideen sind mir dann doch ein bisschen zu schräg. Ist das noch "hard"-sf?
Trotzdem empfehlenswert (als Teil der Serie - eigenständig ist es nur bedingt; IMHO...)! -
Excellent read
I really enjoyed the 2nd book in this series. Great story, great characters, and a wealth of knowledge, all in one book!! Love science fiction, but this stuff just blows me away! A must series read. You won't be disappointed. -
Great Hard SF
This is a truly brilliant series. So well thought out and thoroughly enjoyable. There is a realism to these books which is wonderful. You feel like you're really there and it could really happen this way. Kudos!
