Imperial Earth
Ratings8
Average rating3.2
15
Ratings8
Average rating3.2
Duncan Makenzie is the latest generation of the 'first family' of Titan, a colonised moon of Saturn. Originally settled by his grandfather Malcolm Makenzie in the early 23rd century, Titan's economy has flourished based on the harvest and sale of hydrogen mined from the atmosphere, which is used to fuel the fusion engines of interplanetary spacecraft.
As the plot opens in 2276, a number of factors are combining to make a diplomatic visit to the 'mother world' of Earth a necessity. Firstly, the forthcoming 500th anniversary of US Independence, which is bringing in colonists from the entire Solar System, obviously needs a suitable representative from Titan. Secondly, the Makenzie family carry a fatal damaged gene that means any normal continuation of the family line is impossible—so both Duncan and his "father" Colin are clones of his "grandfather" Malcolm. Human cloning is a mature technology but is even at this time ethically controversial. And thirdly, technological advances in spacecraft drive systems — specifically the 'asymptotic drive' which improves the specific impulse and thrust by orders of magnitude — means that Titan's whole economy is under threat as the demand for hydrogen is about to collapse.
The human aspects of the tale center mainly on the intense infatuation (largely unrequited but not unconsummated) that the two main male characters, Duncan and Karl Helmer, develop for the vividly characterized Catherine Linden Ellerman (Calindy), a visitor to Titan from Earth in their youth, and its lifelong consequences.
A number of other sub-plots suggest some sort of greater mystery, but remain unexplored. The book ends with him returning home with his new "child" Malcolm (who is a clone of his dead friend Karl), leaving the other plot threads dangling.
The book is the first work of science fiction to feature a starship powered by a black hole
Reviews with the most likes.
A mid-70s Clarke novel, heavy on the science - extrapolating the then current thinking on Saturn's moon Titan to a human colony a few hundred years from now. You can tell Clarke does his research. This is full of well thought out ideas about how humans would live on an alien world, especially one as hostile as Titan; Hydrogen based propulsion systems allowing space travel to be fairly economical; human cloning.....you get the point.
Where the novel falls down, for me, is that you don't really care about the characters. Duncan Makenzie, our protagonist, is a third generation clone who travels to Earth for the four hundredth anniversary of the founding of the USA in order to clone the fourth generation version of himself. This is all tied up with a mystery about black market “Titanite” (a mineral found only(?) on Titan) sales and the involvement of his old childhood friend and rival Karl Helmer.
Oh and there's also a love interest in the form of an idealised woman called, quite awfully, Calindy. Which again proves that none of the “Big Three” classic SF writers could write women characters. She's a cypher at best.
It seems more of a showcase for some ideas Clarke liked the sound of slotted into a quite mundane, boring story. It's well written (Clarke was probably the best prose writer of the Big Three) and has some neat ideas but it's not one of his best.
