"Titanium Noir" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

[Becky, Protomodicule]

I'm about 25% into this, and I'm... not enjoying it. It feels like it's trying SO HARD to be noir and gritty, and I keep rolling my eyes while I listen to it. Sigh.

[CJ]

I did not enjoy this one and I apologize for having voted for it, lol. I gave it 2 stars because it wasn't nightmarishly bad and it has some interesting ideas. I just really did not care for the execution.

The worldbuilding was kind of there, but not to the extent that I felt it was a very well through-out world. The main character was a bit shallow and also lacking in any good flaws to make him really interesting. That cage fight scene at the club was ridiculous and had my eyes rolling.

My experience of reading this was heavily colored by having just read Harmattan Season by Tochi Onyebuchi, which is a genre-crossing noir-style thriller, and Onyebuchi did a much better job at capturing the classic noir writing style than Harkaway. So this felt like, as Becky said, like Harkaway was trying too hard. All the sexual banter felt to me like it was shoehorned in to help make the story more interesting and got very tedious very quickly. By the end it felt like Harkaway had this idea of the T7 growth therapy but really didn't know how to turn it into a very good story.

[Squire]

Still struggling with this one due to its psuedo-Chandler style, but something happened to spur me on: Harkaway used one of my five favorite words in the English language (#3 on my short list--though I've always thought in reference to females).

"CALLAPYGIAN CAL!"

That's worth an extra half-star in any review.

[Kaa]

@CJ: Yeah, Titanium Noir vs Harmattan Season is a very unflattering comparison for TN. They have many similar elements but Onyebuchi has a much more effective writing style and I felt wrote a much more interesting story as well.

The amount of banter in TN was so obnoxious. There were a couple of times where I had to stop the audio in the middle of a scene of dialogue and trying to restart in the middle and understand who was saying what was terrible.

[Becky, Protomodicule]

I agree wholeheartedly that the “regular” banter and sexual banter was just too much. That’s exactly what I was thinking about when I said it was trying too hard!

I also think there were too many unresolved threads. Like what was the fat titan’s motivation? Just power? I didn’t really understand that. What happened with Mini and her situation? How did Cal feel about what happened to him? What happened to Maurice? Did I blink and miss it?

I immersive read this along with the audio (which I thought was very poorly done), and I feel like either the book didn’t deliver or I missed A LOT. I think it was the first one.

[Squire]

Every now and then I read a book a book that I wish was written in a different style or by a different author. This is one is them.

[Squire]

Rated it 2.5 stars. Liked the story wanted more background on the dystopian society and the Titan serum. Probably won't read the sequel.

[Pete Harris]

I quite enjoyed it, although it joins what is becoming quite a crowded marketplace for detective noir set in a science fiction universe. A genre which spreads back to Elijah Bayley and more recently takes in Alastair Reynolds Prefect series, and gloriously the City and the City.

Could Raymond Chandler ( maybe along with his contemporaries) be one of the most influential/imitated/plagiarised novelists of all time? ,

The whole thing could be viewed as a metaphorical warning of the dangers of technology increasing inequality, but the eventual moral seems to be that it’s all OK as long as you’re on the right side of the divide. If you cant beat them join them.

Two thoughts, Nick Harkaway strikes me as a novelist frantically casting around trying to find his genre and style.

Secondly, if you didn’t like this, you’ll hate the sequel, Sleeper Beach which is definitely weaker

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

I enjoyed it too. I didn’t think Harkaway was trying too hard, I think it was a tongue-in-cheek homage, an intentional exaggeration for the entertainment value while closely imitating the original 1930’s pulp fiction and movies. It made me laugh, reminding me that the usual noir elements in noir murder mysteries are an unnaturally florid style of writing in the first place. The original 1930’s styling of noir mysteries were extreme too, full of what was then contemporary street slang, with gangsters showing off their abnormal toughness in a lot of tense scenes. Noir originally was after all a type of writing flourish dressing up what are seedy situations and violent people. Humphrey Bogart acted the noir detective in a really terrific florid exaggerated manner. I still remember how he had an obviously designed scene-stealing practiced quick 1-2-3-4-5 slapping method of other actors faces while talking fast and tough in several scenes.

[Becky, Protomodicule]

I guess for me, it didn't feel authentic or real when compared to other noir type books I've read. I enjoy the more gritty and seedy type of noir, and this felt more cartoonish to me. If that was the intent, then mission accomplished. But I didn't enjoy it much. In my mind, I kept comparing it to Flood by Andrew Vachss, which is extremely seedy, extremely sexual, and had a wide variety of "extreme" characters... but it felt much more serious and real, and I think I prefer that. I know that TN is speculative fiction, not based on real life, but I wanted it to feel like it could be, and to me, it didn't.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Becky wrote: "I guess for me, it didn't feel authentic or real when compared to other noir type books I've read. I enjoy the more gritty and seedy type of noir, and this felt more cartoonish to me. If that was t..."

I love Andrew Vachss, and I read Flood, too, maybe Vachss best novel. I did think Vachss was extreme and his writing was, perhaps, a bit subpar in some of the books in the series. But he is a very interesting noir writer with stories I think begin with a foundation from real life.

[Becky, Protomodicule]

Yes, I think it's that "foundation in real life" that makes me feel more favorably toward Flood than TN. Not that I need the actual book to be grounded in reality, but I want it to feel like it is. This one reminded me more of something like Sin City - which is fine, if that's what I was expecting, and what I would expect from a graphic novel (or adaptation of one, since I've only seen the movie), but it's not what I was expecting from this. So the over-the-topness of it felt... too much.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

The Sin City comics are DEFINITELY hyper-exaggerated, if I am remembering them correctly. It’s been awhile! I never saw the movie, but I want to. Becky, we seem to read the same things, even if we feel different about ‘getting into it’. 😁

Hoopla app is my best friend, and the library.

[Becky, Protomodicule]

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "The Sin City comics are DEFINITELY hyper-exaggerated, if I am remembering them correctly. It’s been awhile! I never saw the movie, but I want to. Becky, we seem to read the same things, even if we ..."

I like to read a lot of different stuff! I enjoy noirish fiction, but I haven't read even close to what I probably should. I've never read Raymond Chandler, and I think that actually may be illegal. I'll have to check the GR law. :P

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Becky wrote: "aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "The Sin City comics are DEFINITELY hyper-exaggerated, if I am remembering them correctly. It’s been awhile! I never saw the movie, but I want to. Becky, we seem t..."

😂

[Rohit]

“If humanity could push death far into the future, would we truly become immortal—or simply move further away from what makes us human?”
My review:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Naz]

I think I liked it for Doublewide and Cal mostly; he’s just a troll and I like the dialogue.

I think the writing style does this book a disservice, the clipped back, almost like detective taking notes quality to the first person narrative makes it hard to feel fully engrossed in world. I get it, Cal doesn’t care about all those things, but I as a reader wanna know a bit more.

I think it got better in the second half, but the ending feels underwhelming, because we barely have any interaction with Elaine to feel invested. Same thing with Athena, we don’t know their history beyond the bullet points, I just wasn’t bothered. This is why I probably liked Doublewide; he’s newly introduced.

Also, if Stefan pretty much had an idea what happened with Tibbit, why even put Cal on the case? Why not just get rid of body and handle it internally than giving him the runaround for not reason?

As someone already said… did the author just forget about Mini? In fact that whole thing felt pointless and a loose end for no reason. I wanna say it’s also predictable that Cal ends up with T7.

Ahhh… I think I enjoyed elements of it and it had potential. Maybe the next book will be better 🤷‍♀️

[Winter]

The cage fight scene really took me out, almost ruining the book for me, but things got consistently better after that point. Not great, but nothing else in the book was nearly as cringe inducing in my opinion. I was largely satisfied by the world building and the mystery despite the mostly generic protagonist and often clumsy writing choices. It could have been so much better, though.

[Melani]

I ended up really liking the book, though I considered DNFing about 20ish% of the way through. I'm glad I pushed through. I really liked the resolution of the murder. I do think most of the characters felt a little flat, but I kind of chalked that up to the whole noir of it all.

[Sam]

I have to say I really didn't like it at first, I found the greek myth inspiration stuff a bit... tacky? I guess? But there was a moment somewhere in there that hooked me. I think the thing I like the most about it was the unpredictability which i think is the hallmark of all good noir. I really didn't know what was going to happen, which is a priority for me in books generally.

So it grew on me and the complaints i had about voice or vibe kinda fell by the wayside. I didn't LOVE love the ending, but i also didn't hate it. I think endings are hard to write and this one was, while not a total gut punch, still broadly satisfying. It also had a sort of bittersweet quality that i think is very noir ish (Cal gets what he wants but also something he really doesnt want) and that, while at the time I didn't like, did ring true for the genre for me