Trivia / Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: Has an eerie amount of similarities to the sinking of the RMS Titanic 14 years later. The fact that the ships' names are almost identical (All White Star Line ships used the 'ic' suffix) is just the start. Both ships were the largest afloat, and both didn't carry enough lifeboats for their size. They both sailed the same route from England to New York, and both ignored iceberg warnings and went full steam ahead. Both struck an iceberg 400 nautical miles off the coast of Newfoundland on an April night and sank, with many dead. Life Imitates Art taken to a horrifying extreme. The ships' specs and the details aren't quite the same; the Titan carried the bare minimum number of lifeboats while Titanic carried four extra collapsibles, Titan sank in a dense fog, while the Titanic sank on a clear night, and the Titan sank quickly with only 13 survivors, while the Titanic sank over the course of a few hours, allowing time for passengers to board the lifeboats. Still, the parallels are striking. The Titan also has a similarity to the Titanic's sister ship Olympic, as both collided with a smaller vessel (though in the real world, both the Olympic and the ship it hit, the HMS Hawke, survived), while Captain Smith of the Titanic managed to avert a collision when the ship was setting out with some quick maneuvering.
• Referenced by...: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which takes place on a ship very similar to the RMS Titanic, makes reference to this book and takes note of the similarities to the later Titanic disaster.
• Write What You Know: Robertson was the son of a captain, and had spent a lot of time at sea himself. His novella was more or less an educated guess about what would happen in such a disaster.