Nick Harkaway

I easily fell into the fun of reading Nick Harkaway's 2023 novel Titanium Noir--his first to be written for the post-lockdown world. While not "morally disimproving" (his phrase) like the Aiden Truhen books, it has the same rapid vernacularity, with lots of circumspect and prickly dialogue, droll asides, and recurring violent mayhem. It is a "detective" tale, but it is not a baroque doorstop like Gnomon (2017). Also, the narrator is a private investigator, "not a cop" as he often insists, and thus quite distinct from the Sergeant of Tigerman (2014). I think it is more comparable to The Gone-Away World (2008) in being a snfal adventure built around a central fantastic speculation.

That cornerstone speculation is the "Titanium 7" medical treatment that rejuvenates and enlarges patients--at prohibitive financial cost, so that it is a perquisite and stigma of the "speciation rich" (16). Protagonist Cal Sounder has special expertise in crime connected with the T7 elite, and the story begins with the discovery of a murder where the victim is a Titan. It is irresistible to read the story as a politico-economic fable, and Harkaway even has a character declaim, "God has been a socialist since 1848 when Karl Marx explained things to him" (173).

However, when I finished the book, I realized that if it were any kind of allegory, it had instead to do with Titans as ancestors of the gods, and the creative powers of writers. This book is one which seems to be performing a rite dedicated to the shade of Harkaway's then-recently-deceased father John le Carré, as signaled by the epigram from Damon Runyan: "You can keep the things of bronze and stone and give me one man to remember me just once a year."

The plot is lively, with a few twists that are surprising and some likely ones that don't happen, despite an ending that is borderline-inevitable. The six longish chapters and short seventh are each sufficiently absorbing to read in a single sitting, and they contain many internal breaks to permit pauses as needed. I read the book in under a week without being especially dedicated to it. In just that brief window, I feel like the sarcastic hard-boiled voice of Cal Sounder has become a friend, and I'm a little sad to part from him.… (altro)

Wie abgefuckt ist denn bitte dieses Buch? Und das meine ich nicht mal negativ.
Aiden Truhen hat es echt geschafft mich mit seinem ganz speziellen Schreibstil sehr sehr schnell in den Bann des Buches zu ziehen.
Ob all die Methoden wirklich möglich sind, die der Protagonist Jack an den Tag legt, um dem Gespann der besten Auftragskiller zu entkommen, ist fraglich. Aber in jedem Fall einfallsreich und das eine oder andere Lächeln hüpfte mir da schon mal übers Gesicht, wenn einer von denen das Zeitliche gesegnet hatte.
Wer nichts gegen angefuckte Sprache hat, die auch mal böse unter die Gürtellinie geht und dabei noch Lust auf einen spannenden Thriller hat, sollte sich dieses Buch nicht entgehen lassen.… (altro)

Interesting setting for a noir-style crime novel. It doesn't quite capture the Chandler vibe, the hero is slightly too nice, but it's decent attempt and a fun read. Somewhere in the future, medical tech has progressed and a wonder drug been invented. T7, it completely resets the body, rebuilding it from the initial genetic code back up to fully grown again, whilst retaining all (nearly) mental capacity. This has several benefits it completely heals any damage, and clears any disease. It also grants another lifetime's worth of living before damage starts to accumulate again, and the dose can be repeated. But as with any panacea it comes with some side-effects. Trivially it's very painful for several months as it isn't fast. It's very expensive and access to it is heavily controlled by the family who invented it. More importantly it also doubles the body's normal growth, so people who have taken it even once are larger, stronger heavier - Titans.

Cal Sounder is not a Titan. He's a consultant for the police in an unspecified city region. He does have several connections to the Family though, and his precise consultancy is tidying up any crimes that may touch Titan interests - given their power and influence they aren't going to be convicted of anything, but justice must still be seen to be done. Cal ensures that all the forms can be honestly completed. He has contacts everywhere (this does give the noir vibe) and so knows all the details. He is therefore somewhat surprised when he's called out to what seems to be a normal suicide/murder. On close inspection though the youthful looking professor is actually somewhat tall, and according to his ID, 91 years old. An incognito Titan. While they're not totally immune to everything, this is very surprising.

Fairly fast paced, the motivations of long-lived characters are somewhat obstruse, but it all makes sense in the end. I'm not convinced by some of the violence, but the setting is fun.… (altro)

This is a weird book. A cocaine dealer's inner monologue as he is caught up in - and enthusiastically escalates - a ridiculous and pointless onslaught of extreme violence, horrifying enough that it becomes cartoony. No one learns anything. Most characters don't survive. Nothing is gained, and the world is objectively worse off. And it's continuously entertaining. The sociopathic narrator has a voice that is fun to read. You like him as a character, while he also makes it completely undeniable that he is a horrible person. A true "wtf did I just read?" sort of book.… (altro)