This review of Titan by author Francois Vigneault has been adapted from two previous posts. First is the spoiler free review followed by the spoiler full review and summary.
Thank you so much to author Francois Vigneault for providing me with a copy of Titan in exchange for this honest review.
Spoiler Free Review
I’ve spent my whole adult life as an entry level worker. Various fields, various locations, various vocations. But I still haven’t found that “career path.” This means I’ve spent my whole adult life battling managers, supervisors, captains, leaders of all sorts who have the audacity to tell me how to do a job they’ve never done.
Because of this I found Titan extraordinarily relatable. It’s the story of miners on Jupiter’s moon Titan. The Titan workers are large humans engineered specifically to withstand the low gravity atmosphere of the moon. This specific mine has been underperforming due to outdated equipment, lack of funding, and possibly some less than adequate workers.
Joao is the Terran human sent by management to straighten the place up. It’s his job to determine how to make the mine more profitable and more efficient.
Now, as a worker, when I hear that management wants to stick its nose in my business and tell me how to do my job I cringe. We all do. We know they need to do their jobs we just never like how they do it. Get me better equipment and then we can talk about my performance!
But Titan actually made me feel for Joao as well as the miners. From his perspective his duties make sense and I can understand why he would do the things he does. The most truly shocking part of Titan to me was that I would ever sympathize with management.
The reader gets to feel for both sides through the relationship between Joao and outspoken union representative Phoebe. We can understand both of their positions and therefore see all sides to the conflict.
Somehow I was rooting for both of them even though they are in what seems to be direct opposition. The key is humanization. These characters are real and they have far more to them than just their job titles.
Titan is a science fiction graphic novel that is definitely for an adult audience. In order to fully appreciate the book it definitely will help if you held a few jobs.
Additionally it does contain graphic sex and some violence. Just as a heads up for anyone thinking that a book about unionized workers could be for their kids.
Graphic novels like Titan are a marvelous medium for this brand of realistic science fiction. We get to see some tech that is likely coming in the not too distant future, some space travel, and some nudity. Win, win, win.
Titan is now available in english and I highly recommend you pick up a copy for you and all your coworkers.
4/5 kisses of the proletariat 💋💋💋💋
Titan Summary
Titan is a mature science fiction graphic novel. It contains adult themes like sex and violence. Even includes some equal opportunity nudity! But it also includes adult themes like unionization and capitalism versus socialism. So in every way, it’s not for kids.
I’ve spent my whole adult life in a fight against management. I can fully appreciate the battle that takes place here on Titan, the moon of Jupiter.
A Terran manager named Joao is sent to Titan to whip the miners into shape and make the location more profitable. Titan natives are known as Titans and they’ve been specifically engineered to work in the low gravity ecosystem. Basically, they’re quite large.
Phoebe is an opinionated Titan worker placed in the position of showing Joao the ropes. She dominates him in personality and size.
Terrans and Titans have a long standing history of racial tension. Things quickly escalate in Joao’s presence among the Titans.
Phoebe does however agree to help him with his duties as long as he takes her with him when his tour is over. She wants to be relocated to a mine with better treatment for its staff.
He agrees and Phoebe seduces him through their mutual love of music. There is at this point a scene of fairly graphic sex including an erect penis and my how rare that is! Bonus points for going there. Love it.
Although Phoebe and Joao are getting along well the Titans do not appreciate the management’s proposals and they begin to strike. The strike quickly turns into a full scale war.
It’s interesting because I can definitey see Joao’s point of needing to observe the workers in order to spot where the inefficiencies are. However, I can also fully understand how the workers would absolutely not want to be monitored so closely that it feels like an invasion of privacy. Titan makes both sides seem valid.
Phoebe and Joao are ambushed, Phoebe gets shot and Joao is kidnapped. They steal his bio technology that allows them to take control of basically anything that Joao had access to.
Phoebe, not one to take a fight lying down, shows up to rescue Joao. Alas, they are not meant to be together romantically. She tells him to escape on her own, she must stay and fight for her people.
7 years later they are reunited at a peace treaty signing. Both parties have done quite well in their perspective fights and have managed to come together for less blood shed.
In order for management and unions to ever see eye to eye they first need to humanize the opposing side. I know that I personally view my manager as a sort of alien who learned about the human race by watching infomercials and assumes that everyone is too incompetent to even get to work every morning. So I could maybe use this lesson.
It’s important to communicate on a personal level. Joao needed Phoebe to show him that workers aren’t another commodity that can be immediately replaced. Phoebe needed Joao in order to see that they really do want to save jobs but there’s an unfortunate reality to efficiencies needing to be met.
It’s extremely difficult to work for a faceless company that treats you like you’re subhuman. I 100% understand the desire to revolt. And it may sometimes be necessary. But here’s hoping that in the end both sides can meet in the middle.
Read Titan, but you should still probably not sleep with your boss.
4/5 kisses of the proletariat 💋💋💋💋
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