Titanborn by Rhett C. Bruno – A Book Review

Blurb:

Titan’s rebellion is coming. Only one man can stop it.

Malcolm Graves is a Collector. The best there is. He’s spent a lifetime putting down riots and chasing wanted offworlders across the solar-system for Pervenio Corporation. So long as the pay is right, he’s the man for the job.

He never bothers asking questions. And he always works alone.

But after the high-profile bombing of Earth’s capital, everything changes. His rattled employer forces him to team up with a younger, cyber-augmented partner more interested in statistics than instinct. An aging Collector’s nightmare.

They must track down the suspected group of extremists from Titan, who will stop at nothing to free their moon from the oppressive grip of Earth’s corporations. If Malcolm and his strange new partner hope to survive, they’ll need to learn to work together.
Author: Rhett C. Bruno
Publisher: Aethon Books
Pages: 282
Genre: Science Fiction
Release Date: 05/02/2019
My Chosen Format: Kindle
My Rating of ‘Titanborn’: 4 out of 5
Purchase: Amazon UK, Amazon US, Audible UK, Audible US

Review:

I’m a subscriber to the ‘Sci-Fi Bridge’ e-mail newsletter and saw this, and the other three books in the series on sale for 99p as an omnibus. Thought it was worth a go and am very happy that I tried it.

Titanborn tells the tale of Malcolm Graves, a collector (bounty hunter of sorts) that works for one of the main corporations in the solar system. The world/solar system is largely ran by such corporations and set to the backdrop of mankind expanding out to other worlds/moons/stations after the calamitous meteorite impact on Earth several centuries prior.

As the blurb mentions, Malcolm, along with his incredibly socially awkward cyborg of a partner are sent to discover who was behind the bombing and why.

I really enjoyed Titanborn. So many aspects of it made for easy and addictive reading. Whether it was the smooth flowing writing style, the intriguing relationship between Malcolm and the partner he did not want assigned to him, or the events unfolding around the main plotline.

For anyone who wants to escape to some easy to enjoy sci-fi, I’d highly recommend giving this book a try. There isn’t a whole lot of science or heavy thinking involved so it’s easy to just pick up and go.

The lack of science would be one of the smaller issues I had with it, despite it also being one of the things that made it so easy to read. I’m a huge space nerd and would have enjoyed a bit more space nerd style speak. But that was hardly a massive downer.

My main issue was that, despite what was happening being a first and Malcolm freely admitting he’d had no experience with this kind of thing, he just totally avoided all advice and just decided on doing his own thing because of his experience … which, in these circumstances he didn’t have. He also just seemed to know things or that certain things came too easy for him.

I’d just have liked him to have to work harder rather than things just happen for him.

On the whole, that didn’t really hurt my enjoyment of the story a great deal and I’m very much looking forward to reading the next in the series.