Stephen Baxter's TITAN is horribly depressing.

[Orsino]

(also posted in Science)
Not only is this book a pessimistic view of the future of space travel (an overburdened economy, oppressive government and scarce resources have virtually halted US space flight), it's an improbable premise (old Saturn boosters and shuttles re-tooled for a ten-year mission to Titan) with a depressing fatalism (a few astronauts who plan it as a one-way trip and the hardships that kill them off one-by one), it ends in the suicides of those not killed and/or driven mad plus the gratuitous ending of life (or at least civilization) on Earth in a nuclear war. And they don't discover life on Titan. Ugh.

The "happy" ending is the near-magical resurrection of a pair of the astronauts a billion years later by intelligent Titanians who evolved as the sun warmed over eons.

[Emperor_Norton_II]

1. Just about everything Baxter writes is horribly depressing. -nt-

[phantom power]

3. No doubt. This is an author whose favorite cosmology involves...

the destruction of the baryonic universe by dark-matter beings.

[politicat]

2. Stephen Baxter always destroys all life on Earth.

Someone really should take a look at his meds, because he's got a serious issue with mass homicide by fiction....

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. Jeez, how about a spoiler warning

Did you leave ANYTHING out?