Review: Mammon Book 2: Messiah, by Robert Kroese
This sequel to Titan transitions to a full-on political thriller worthy of Tom Clancy.
Mammon: Messiah continues where Titan left off: after the U.S. government banked its future on the capture of an asteroid full of rare and valuable minerals, its project is sabotaged and the world goes into a full-on panic. When it becomes clear that the asteroid is headed for Earth, a team of engineers and scientists have to take the capture mission on by themselves.
This sequel to Titan transitions to a full-on political thriller worthy of Tom Clancy.
Purchase link:
The story
The story of Messiah takes a turn from that of Titan, shifting focus to the social, economic and political dynamics of a financial catastrophe and the resulting collapse of the US led world order. This book is less Heinlein and more Tom Clancy, exploring the conflicts erupting from the collapse of the dollar and the responses of various political actors vying for power while ordinary people fight to survive.
Kroese skillfully sets up the dominos of the story so that one event logically follows from the other, making the absolute craziness of a the LAPD carving out its own fiefdom outside the jurisdiction of the federal government and a group of engineers running a private space program in the Libyan desert teaming up with jihadis to try to save the world actually believable.
The characters
Messiah follows the same protagonists of Titan as they struggle against the incompetency and sometimes outright antagonism of the world governments. What is great about Messiah is watching the characters rise to the challenge of the various disasters that surround them. Kade Kapur, who cooked up the very idea to capture the asteroid Mammon, now has to struggle with the guilt that he might have set things in motion to end life on Earth as we know it. Valerie Munoz started as a housewife in a bad marriage in Titan, and grows to become a key part of the project to save the world.
I specifically want to highlight the character of Rick Sutherland, Valerie’s husband: the guy is an absolute scumbag cop, and also one of the more competent and driven characters in the series. He is hardly sympathetic and his inclusion as a POV character seems out of place at first, but it soon becomes clear that he is key to important events in the plot. More than that, he is an example of what one might call “toxic masculinity” that doesn’t feel like a feminist caricature - his attitude is informed by his experiences, and he acts with a cold rationality that is understandable, if ignoble. Rick is clearly being set up as a substantial obstacle for Valerie to overcome, if not a major villain, and he certainly fits the role.
The world
The world of Titan - our world, if we’re not careful - continues to fall apart in Messiah. Kroese is meticulous about providing the details that make the world and even the most unbelievable events that take place in it inevitable.
As an example, Messiah leads the reader down the path from hyperinflation to the break down of law enforcement all the way to the LAPD becoming a gang of warlords governing the City of Angels as an autonomous zone outside of US jurisdiction, making the process feel like a perfectly natural response to the events of the novel.
The politics
Cryptocurrencies take center stage as the U.S. dollar fails, so if for some reason you are irrationally hostile to the idea that these currencies could act in place of fiat money, you might want to avoid this one.
Content warning
There is plenty of violence in Messiah and some depictions of prostitution but nothing graphic for either. Profanity is frequently used throughout the novel.
Who is it for?
Messiah is for anyone who loves a world-spanning political thriller during the collapse of the American hegemony, with a little futuristic science fiction thrown in.
Why read it?
Read Messiah for the well-researched and detailed look at a world-wide economic collapse overshadowed by the possibility of a world-ending asteroid strike.