Rating: 
Summary: Depressing for some, but full of possibilities and hope too
Review: Excellent read. Like the journey in the novel, the read is also long. Baxter succeeds in making the reader feel the misfortunes that happen to the crew at an individual level and at the same time gasp in incredulity at the stupidity of the human race "en masse". That contradiction in itself is a real mindful. The ending is a stunner and questions the very ethos or meaning of human survival. It infact ends on a hopeful note even though some find it depressing. This novel is about life, the beauty and struggle of it. It is also about being alone and yet at the same time part of a beautiful, if violent evolution that we are all, mostly unknowingly a part of, a cosmic drama that started well before the birth of our sun and will continue well after the end of our galaxy! I suggest you read it slowly and savor each feeling that arises from the events that unfold. Contrast the individual with the group, with the cosmic and only then will the reader really appreciate the depth of this work.
Rating: 
Summary: Stephen Baxter books are all the same
Review: Prior to reading Titan, I had read the other Stephen Baxter books, The Time Ships, and Ring. Titan is a good book in its own right, but after reading it I noticed something. Stephen Baxter books are all the same. Yeah, the characters are different, the places are different, and the technologies are different. But they're all just different tellings of the same story. In some way or other, mankind dies. In the Time Ships, we were replaced with machines. In Ring, the Xeelee defeated us. In Titan, we destroyed ourselves. And then the last human(s) alive somehow escape(s). In the Time Ships, escape was into the past. In Ring, into an alternate universe, and in Titan, into the future via resurrection.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark, gritty and ... captivating!
Review: If you like intense, well written and really, really h-a-r-d scifi Titan is definitely worth your attention. There is heavy inspiration from Clarke, but the book is far more than a mere copycat. It has an epic story of its own to tell. Yes, the mood is indeed very pessimistic and Baxter's endless obsession with technical and scientific detail can at times be extremely annoying; also the main characters are rather 'sketchy' in terms of personality - but those are minor flaws in my humble opinion. Overall Titan is a truly captivating near-future vision of Man's last attempt to reach for the stars. And although Baxter's characters aren't very 'deep' he is conveying their moods and interactions quite convincingly. He is also an ace at describing esp. 'space-moods'. I really felt I was in that damn shuttle for a moment, marveling at the grandeur of our blue planet seen from space! (And that was only the first chapter!) As a reader one also gets some very chilling insights into how hostile an environment space actually is. One almost suspects that fragile humans were never meant to go there in the first place. Some geo-political events (like the political development in the US and China) I don't consider very realistic, but a story - or a future vision - doesn't need to be that in order to work. It just needs to be plausible, and I think Baxter does okay in that department (I mean, after the Cold War it was discovered that the Warzaw Pact had plans to annihilate most of Western Europe with tactical nukes in case of war with NATO. So why couldn't some senile old Chinese - ) Ups, better not spoil anything here! ... Go read it yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Typical Baxter
Review: Typical Baxter, with a lot of words, grandiose imagination, etc. Slow paced, at times I was ready to scream "get it over". The plot is not very good, but, in the end, more I liked it than dislike it...
Rating: 
Summary: Amazingly bad
Review: The first part of the book was a very boring description of bureaucracy and what parts to use to build the spaceship. I thought they'd never actually get into space! Then they did, and it got horribly worse. Characters seem to be there just to describe the physical misery of the trip, and there was no other reason to care about them. I agree that there is merit in describing this "accurate" misery, but it makes for an awful read. One of the worst books I've read.
Rating:
Summary: so SCARED
Review: I just finished this book which is in itself very well written and original. But what I will most remember of this book is the "cultural future" it presented - horrifying because it is not that far fetched, of how low mankind can stoop to, of how we can so easily choose ignorance over the pursuit of knowledge... and how history tends to repeat itself.
Rating:
Summary: Do you believe in life after earth
Review: My GODThis book is deep. I will not divulge the secrets of its plot just read it
Rating:
Summary: Frightfully believable
Review: Some reviewers seem to find the first part of the book nonbelievable. Being a professional historian, I am painfully aware how a civilized society can descend into ignorance, superstition, and barbarism in a surprisingly short time, for reasons even historians do not yet understand fully,( see Germany under Hitler, Russia inder Lenin and Stalin, Cambodia under Pol Pot, and China during the Cultural Revolution. ) I am also painfully aware of what happens when one political or religious group, be it Red, Brown, Black or Green, gains complete control over society, and as a result gets intoxicated by its power. I therefor e regard the first part of TITAN as a strong warning to be heeded, or ignored at our peril. The rest of the book I consider a good example of hardcore, near-future SF, the accuracy of which will be determined in 2004, when Cassini will reach Saturn.
Rating:
Summary: Space RealPolitik
Review: Like others here, I did find this book depressing but Baxter has researched the book so well that one comes away with a feeling that space travel on the grand scale probably would be this incredibly difficult and dismal. I did not find this off putting as most of what is really worthwhile in life is obtained at great personal sacrefice and struggle. I recommend this book highly to anyone who has the guts to face the existential aspects of science fiction. Images from the book keep coming back to haunt me. The stark hostile beauty of Titan, the squalid conditions aboard the ships, the descriptions of having to dispose of your wastes while in a pressure suit camped inside a environmental enclosure resting on frozen methane, the tragic deaths of the crew whom we get to know intimately, the unforgetable death of the heroine in a lake of tholin, and the an ending that is both upbeat and poignant. People who panned this book are either out of touch with the terror of human existence or living in a fool's paradise.
Rating: 
Summary: A horrible book
Review: I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. The mood was well developed but too pessimistic and the politics were exaggerated but chillingly close to some people's rhetoric. The characters were undeveloped and unlikeable. The ending was more interesting than the body of the book but seemed unfinished. Most of all I hated the book's infectious pessimism, fatalism, and grotesqueness.
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