#617 in our old book database. Not rated.

This is not a "potboiler", this is a watched pot that never quite boils! I found the science and math background information quite interesting, but there wasn't really a plot to use it for. To say it moved at a snail's pace is insulting the snails. What passes for a plot rambles along, with lots of side tracks and characters that come and go. Nothing really resolves or finishes, it just stops. Interesting scientific ideas wander through, get explained in detail, than have nothing else to do with the story.

What I found most fun was noticing when predictions from 1990 onto 2010+ were right and wrong. Clarke correctly described the Y2K date problem but focused on fixing mainframes, he noted the exchange of large amounts of data, but invented new miniature terabyte physical devices without a hint of the internet. Research before the mission, a necessary step not often mentioned in adventure stories, is still done with encyclopedias. He created an entire industry using computers to modify old films and tv, which we do have, but used it primarily to remove all scenes of smoking that "offend" audiences, rather that to colorize everything because the younger generations won't watch B&W. He predicted the use of fiberoptic cables (but just for phone calls) but missed the breakup of the USSR. Totally missed the digital effects revolution - mission planning was done with model animation effects. ( )

I read a lot of Clarke's science fiction when I was young and I know I thought it was pretty good. This book came out in 1990 but I had mostly passed on to reading other genres or literary fiction by then (when I did have time to read which wasn't that much). Recently I've been getting back into reading science fiction mostly by authors who weren't writing when I was young. Occasionally I dip into some of the older science fiction but I find it doesn't grab me like the more recent stuff does. This book is a case in point.

The title refers to the Titanic. The book is set in 2012 which was the centenary of the sinking of the ship. Two different groups want to raise the Titanic and since the wreck is in two parts each one has a go. One group plans to raise it with tiny glass spheres filled with gas which will be piped down to the wreck, "packaged in bundles, each a cubic meter in volume. That will give a buoyancy of one ton per unit..."( p. 116). The group behind this has long been involved in glass manufacturing. The other group, from Japan, plans to bring up the stern inside an iceberg which is a bit of poetic justice. They plan to use a couple of decommissioned nuclear subs to provide power to an underwater icemaking machine that will encase the stern. When that is completed the cables restraining it will be severed and it will go up to the surface. To my mind both of these methods seem implausible but I suppose the physics of them is correct. This part of the story was pretty interesting. After all, who isn't interested in the Titanic? Unfortunately Clarke tacked on a subplot about mathematics, specifically the Mandelbrot Set which is pretty technical and very marginally attached to the Titanic story. (A couple helping the Japanese have a daughter who is fascinated by the M-set, the subset of the Mandelbrot Set between 1 and -1). This seems so extraneous that I can only presume that Clarke was so fascinated by this that he had to work it in some way.

So, if you can manage to skim the descriptions of the Mandelbrot mathematics you might enjoy the Titanic story. Otherwise, don't bother. ( )

Trata de la historia del Titanic, a cien años de haberse hundido. Dos de las más poderosas corporaciones compiten para encontrar y preservar el crucero de lujo. La conquista para descubrir los secretos del barco y reclamarlo, se convierten en obsesión y para algunos esta obsesión resulta fatal.

This is the first Clarke book that I've ever not liked. I didn't care for the characters at all. It was more technical (fractals) than typical Clarke books. I know the subject matter of raising the Titanic is dated, but dated books usually don't bother me. I ended up skimming the last 100 pages... Oh well. ( )