Titan Hoppers gives me one of the main things I look for in books, an interesting concept written well. All of humanity seems to be gathered on a fleet of spaceships for reasons that I presume have been forgotten to time. They were doomed to float through space, slowly breaking down and running out of resources, until they came upon a Titan. A giant space station filled with monsters but also full of food, water and everything else that humanity needs to survive. It also granted certain people access to special powers, which allowed them to investigate deeper into the titan. It was a perilous existence but humanity managed to keep themselves stable.

Then it blew up and the fleet were once again alone in space.

It’s a fantastic set up for a novel, starting off with stakes high and a great understanding of what the problems are. So when a second Titan is spotted you know that it’s desperately needed.

I liked the journey of the main character. Although his sister and mother were Hoppers he doesn’t have the ability, despite desperately wanting it. Being treated like a second class citizen by the Hoppers his own age and how he reacts to gaining his own, unexpected powers was nice. He wasn’t the most interesting character for me, that was one of the side characters, but his story arc was well constructed and helped to introduce the reader nicely to the world.

The magic system is nice as well. It’s a little basic but it’s flexible and not too complicated. But what I really liked was the writing. Hayes really manages to sell the idea that the characters have lived all their lives on space ships and have no other frame of reference. I particularly liked the bit where the ground was described as ‘riddled with hard wires of wood that criss-crossed through the dirt.’ That’s just some great writing right there.

There were a few things that I thought could have been tackled a bit better. There’s an appearance of other Hoppers that I thought should have been investigated before it came to the head that it did but I’m fairly sure it was just setting up for the next book, so it’s understandable. All in all though it was a very fun and enjoyable read.