Nick Harkaway fuses a broody noir thriller with a cyberpunk dystopia in Titanium Noir. Set in a fictional American metropolis tucked away within the mountains, Titanium Noir follows Cal Sounder, a detective who helps the police with solely essentially the most distinctive of instances: those who contain Titans, individuals who have attained the closest factor to immortality that capitalism can present. After taking a drug named T7, a human is “reset” to adolescence, then, quickly and painfully, they dash again by means of puberty, leading to a rejuvenated physique. Since they begin their second puberty as a totally grown grownup, they turn out to be a lot bigger, their bones denser and their muscle groups thicker, therefore the identify Titan.
Titans are nearly completely ultrarich or extremely influential, their bodily stature typically merely a mirrored image of their broader social energy. Stefan Tonfamecasca, the creator of T7 and controller of its distribution, is now impossibly enormous as a four-dose Titan. Cal is Stefan’s liaison with regulation enforcement, sparing the police from coping with the ruling wealthy of town whereas additionally preserving Titan issues from escalating out of management. But Cal’s newest case is particularly difficult: A Titan has, someway, been murdered.
Harkaway colours every character and vignette with simply sufficient element to maintain issues attention-grabbing, whereas assembling the setting and unraveling the thriller in a gradual stream of info. Cal’s sardonic and witty inside monologue helps maintain the reader from shedding monitor of necessary particulars, with Cal himself appearing as a mandatory anchor as Harkaway introduces new characters and divulges new plot factors on practically each web page.
Titanium Noir’s quick tempo drives house simply how a lot Cal is floundering, a really small fish in a really massive pond, doing his very best. There are a number of well-choreographed, graphic however not gratuitously bloody fights and a number of other tense negotiations with very highly effective figures, every leaving Cal more and more feeling like the chances are stacked in opposition to him. Yet, he relentlessly pursues the reality, flirts with rise up and even performs some gentle blackmail on the way in which. (What is somewhat extortion between mates, anyway?)
With its likable narrator, explosive motion, noir-style rumination and simply the correct amount of twists, Titanium Noir is an entertaining sci-fi thriller that by no means overstays its welcome.
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