Titan by Robert KroeseMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a 4-star review which is a fair representation of my experience with this book.
There are a lot of moving pieces to this book. Our protagonist, Kade Kapur, dreams of starting an aerospace company to help humanity make the jump from Earth to the stars. He is in turn driven, charming, and a techno-geek hesitantly feeling his way through the world.
Unlike past generations of world-changing titans of industry, Kade comes of age at a time when the last free (or at least semi-free) nation is slowly tightening the regulatory and taxation vise that stifles innovation. He is a modern John Galt adapting as quickly as possible; slithering through the closing gap of government interference like Indiana Jones escaping an ancient, trapped tomb.
The story includes native elements about electronic currencies, blockchain systems, privacy concerns, and space mining technologies. The primary characters are engaging and fully realized. Some of the secondary characters are mildly two-dimensional.
The primary reason why this didn't get 5-stars is the economics treatises that get info-dumped in the middle of the story. Most of these come in the form of monologues from an 18-year old prodigy. At some point, the dense economic info-dumps coming from an unlikely source turn into a case where the sub-text supersedes the text. The ideology displaces the story.
The preaching upstages the entertainment.
This was largely an enjoyable read. I look forward to reading the next installment at some point.
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