Titanborn - Rhett C Bruno (english review)

Disclaimer: English is my third language,  so I want to apologize in advance for there may be mistakes in the text below. If you find any, please let me know so that I can correct it. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks. You can read this review also in spanish here.

Mid-June is always a very busy time at work, so I needed a blockbuster style reading : fun, entertaining and undemanding. Titanborn, by Rhett C. Bruno has all the advantages of this type of product, even offers some extra more, but the sum of some negative details, especially regarding the plot, caused that the overall rating is not very high.

The worldbuilding is very interesting: a meteorite fell on Earth and destroyed much of coastal zones and altered the planet's climate. Yet humanity survived and managed to colonize other solar system bodies, like the Moon, Titan or Europe. Every five years a space ark is sent to planets orbiting other stars, but none of them has still arrived. The author describes many interesting and original features of technology, social habits and even dares to touch more serious issues such as racism and class struggle between humans born in different parts of the solar system. Also he delves into body modifications of the generations born in different satellites. In this regard I must admit that Rhett C. Bruno pleasantly surprised me.

The narrator of the story is Malcolm, a veteran collector, a mix of mercenary and bounty hunter that works for one of the largest corporations in the solar system. After a mission resolved with little success, while he is enjoying a forced vacation on Earth, he is embroiled in a criminal plot involving the corporation for which he works. He is assigned a young fellow to help him, who belongs to a pilot program of intensive training of young people with skills to perform the work of collector.

From this time the ambientation loses weight in the story and the novel becomes a buddy movie  with many topics of the genre: relationship problems at first, generational conflict, learning in both directions after ...

But the main flaw in my opinion is that I have seen coming the resolution from afar, the clues that the author leaves to take the reader till the end of the story are very visible and the end, which is suposed to be emotive and surprising, in my case has become apparent and a little forced.

In short: an entertaining novel that doesn´t deceive and delivers what it promises: action, intrigue and an original and detailed setting (the best of the novel), but loses points for the little originality of the relationship between the two main protagonists and for the resolution of the plot, too obvious.