Titan. The largest moon of the planet Saturn and second in size only to Jupiter's Ganymede. Titan is bigger, in fact, than the planet Mercury. With an atmosphere, ice, and stable bodies of liquid, some have said it may be more viable for colonization than Mars. But is it? How would humanity adjust to long-term effects of a gravitational pull less than Earth's own moon? What would be the socio-economic impacts of such a colony? What about the political dynamics? The military implications? The scientific potentials?
Will it be the romanticized experience popularized in film and fandom, with state-of-the-art equipment; clean, orderly habitats; and meaningful experimentation? Self-sufficient systems? Supportive efforts and mutual cooperation for the common good?
In Far Futures Book Four, science fiction authors from around the world suggest how unlikely that is. They write of the distant future. Tales of grit and ammonia, methane rain, hard-boiled private eyes, murder, deception, social breakdown, and disastrous first contacts. Stories that stretch the imagination and test the limits of human endurance.
Stories by Zachary Taylor Branch, G.C. Byrne, Stephen W. Chappell, Isabel McKeough, James Palmer, Diana Parrilla, James Pyles, and Katrina Schroeder, with a poem by Mark Hendrickson. Edited by Robert J. Mendenhall.