Titanium Noir (SF) - Nick Harkaway *****

Of all the sub-genres, arguably the two most comfortable bedfellows are gumshoe noir and dystopian science fiction. It’s part of the appeal of the movie Blade Runner, and it can be even more effective when done brilliantly in a novel like Titanium Noir. Nick Harkaway gets the whole vibe to perfection - his detective Cal Sounder has all the traits of a Raymond Chandler or Dashiell Hammett protagonist, in a technological future without ever slipping into pastiche or parody.

The nearish future setting has two tiers of humanity with the ultra-rich and super-privileged few able to renew their youth, in the process becoming 'titans' - not only does the procedure fix all ills and make them young again, each time it is taken, it makes them bigger, stronger and heavier. (Harkaway mostly gets away with this despite the usual giant problem of mass going up with the cube of the person’s size while bone strength only goes up with the square - he does this by giving the titans increasingly huge bones.)

Sounder is brought in as a consultant by the police when a case involves titans because of a backstory that is gradually revealed - and we begin with a murder of one of their kind. From here, things rapidly get twisty and challenging, making for a very satisfying read. There are a couple of extremely dramatic fight scenes: I don’t know if a move in the first one is physically possible, but it’s not one I am going to forget any time soon. It may appear in several nightmares.

The whole is somehow even better than the sum of the parts - this book is perfectly crafted. I said of Harkaway’s massive doorstop of a novel Gnomon that it would have been great if only unnecessary aspects of it had been cut down. Titanium Noir has all the intrigue and cleverness of Gnomon with the unnecessary extra weight trimmed away - it is simply the best SF novel I’ve read this year. By far.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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