Special(ish) post
This post is by way of a test of premium content. It’s me wittering on, hopefully in an entertaining manner.
Science fiction gets a bad press. Consumed by antisocial nerds of dubious personal hygiene. Worthless escapism. Bug-eyed monsters, rayguns and wish fulfilment fantasies. Dubious gender stereotypes. Those tropes date back to the 1950s. But the genre is far older, and that isn’t how it started. If we go back to the first science fiction, predating even Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – and we’ll come back to that – science fiction was about speculating about how science might tell us something about the present time. Speculative fiction is a bit of a clumsy name for the genre, but it’s sometimes used and is probably a better description of what it is, why it exists and how it works. Frankenstein, an escapist work by definition – written during what must have been a nightmare period for Mary Shelley, stuck away from home in a house with a bunch of egotistical, substance-abusing men during terrible weather, uses science current to the time it was written to examine worries about the morality of applying that science and the nature of humanity.
Which brings me to the book I’ve been enjoying recently – Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway. Superficially it’s a crime thriller/whodunnit in the tradition of hardboiled detective novelists like Chandler, Hammet et al, and particularly inspired by Damon Runyan, following the investigation of the death of a man who had been treated with a drug called Titanium 7, which resets the body into the growing phase of early childhood and adolescence, thereby healing injuries, prolonging life and resulting in a growth spurt which thickens bones and grows muscle – people who take it are known as Titans. Our victim is a lanky 7 feet tall and, while looking to be in his mid-40s, is in fact well over 90. The protagonist, Cal Sounder, is a consulting detective who works with police on cases involving Titans. But that’s not what it’s about. Titanium 7 is extremely expensive, so what the book is really about is how the rich aren’t human; Cal’s job exists because Titans are so rich that crime involving them tends to have political implications, obstructing police investigations. Harkaway uses the term “speciation rich” to bring the point home – wealth has created a new species. There are two extreme examples in the story: the owner of the company which sells the drug (It’s never stated whether he was a scientist involved in developing it), who has taken four doses and is now four metres tall and generates infrasound frequencies when he speaks. The other, in the tradition of “Fat man” criminal masterminds like Sydney Greenstreet’s character in The Maltese Falcon, is the gang boss of the (unnamed) city setting, whose dose of Titanium 7 made him grow outwards rather than up: he has the wonderful nickname of Doublewide, and his underlings bristle when Cal describes him as “The Humpty Dumpty of crime”. He’s so inhuman that to get around quickly he has to vault from hand to hand – his thighs are too thick to pass each other when he’s walking.
One thing I found particularly pleasing about Titanium Noir is that its setting isn’t a future dystopia. It’s an ordinary city, with a distinctive geographical setting on the bank of a deep Alpine lake. Although the city is never named, we hear about districts: wealthy Chersenesos, on a headland jutting into the lake, and down-at-heel Tappeny Bridge; the names made me think of Native American origins and possibly Irish immigration, which fit the vaguely Midwest American setting. There are pleasing quirks in the city: the bar in the old town which has become a hotbed for Communists; the nightclub which caters to Titans and groupies, and is run by an outrageous former evangelist preacher; and cast members who could have come from Tom Waits songs – a janitor with a horrible habit which rings so true I’m wondering whether Harkaway rencounterted it in real life; sad-luck dames; naïve students with troubles of their own; a dodgy vet who seduces the owners of the dogs he treats; club singers in above their heads.
The science of Titanium Noir probably isn’t sound but it doesn’t need to be: Harkaway is convincing when he talks about its effects and how people see it, which in a fiction is what matters. It works as an entertainment and a warning, much like Frankenstein. Its expected but moving ending could be a set-up for a sequel, and I hope it is. I’d happily spend more time with Cal, gazing out into the lake waters at the tip of Chersesnos point and wondering about the nature of humanity.
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