- Paperback: 326 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group; Reissue edition (1 Oct 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0385333498
- ISBN-13: 978-0385333498
- Product Dimensions: 13.3 x 1.8 x 20.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,651,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Sirens of Titan (Kurt Vonnegut Series)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Kurt Vonnegut's second SF novel was published way back in 1959 but remains horribly timeless. For all the book's wild inventiveness, it's one of the most blackly nihilistic comedies ever published in the genre. The tragicomic godgame is presided over by Winston Niles Rumfoord, who has accidentally become a standing wave in space/time and knows the past and the future. Since the future is fixed, he can't change it even though it involves him arranging nasty fates for many people--in particular Malachi Constant, richest man in the world since his father's career of interpreting the Bible as a coded guide to the stockmarket. Despite his struggles, Constant is destined for a grimly comic pilgrimage around the Solar System to Titan, home since 203,117 BC of the visiting alien Salo whose presence has warped the whole of human history. Salo's far-off people manipulated us into building Stonehenge, the Great Wall of China and other vast constructions as reassuring signals to their stranded emissary--who himself is carrying a message of truly cosmic unimportance. Small wonder that Rumfoord tries to cheer up humanity by founding the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent. Vonnegut scatters crazed ideas in all directions, forcing you into painful laughter at the grandiose futility of his cosmos. Another worthy Millennium SF Masterworks classic. --David Langford
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
Book Description
One of the very best must-read SF novels of all time
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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EVERYONE NOW KNOWS how to find the meaning of life within himself. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt
EVERYONE NOW KNOWS how to find the meaning of life within himself. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Winston Rumfoord visits the planets. He sees plenty, but is powerless to change anything. Although he understands the past and the future, he can affect no change. But he has a destiny and it's on the moons of Saturn where he'll discover the meaning of life and the ultimate destiny of mankind.
This is a pleasant read. Although nihilistic, the story is presented in a whimsical and ironic manner. This is a warm up for Vonnegut's later more profound works. The principles of pre-determined fate and the futility of existence are presented here but for pure comic effect rather than the cutting serious approach used later in Slaughterhouse 5. The invented religion of God the Utterly Indifferent is a great phrase but doesn't have much substance behind it and isn't as well applied as the ludicrous religion in Cat's Cradle. That is not a major concern. This is probably the author's most easily enjoyable novel with more fun asides and great lines than any novel has a right to have.
There's a serious message all right, but it's buried beneath the gags rather than presented up front as in the later books. Throwaway ideas here are developed further later on, but in many ways I think Vonnegut may have been better served staying with this whimisical but no less biting style.
Most memorable is the ending which provides the genesis of Douglas Adams's 42 as the meaning of life gag along with several other of Adams' classic ideas, except they are done a lot better here and a lot earlier. This is a very funny novel and probably the best one to start with if you want to try his books.
This is a pleasant read. Although nihilistic, the story is presented in a whimsical and ironic manner. This is a warm up for Vonnegut's later more profound works. The principles of pre-determined fate and the futility of existence are presented here but for pure comic effect rather than the cutting serious approach used later in Slaughterhouse 5. The invented religion of God the Utterly Indifferent is a great phrase but doesn't have much substance behind it and isn't as well applied as the ludicrous religion in Cat's Cradle. That is not a major concern. This is probably the author's most easily enjoyable novel with more fun asides and great lines than any novel has a right to have.
There's a serious message all right, but it's buried beneath the gags rather than presented up front as in the later books. Throwaway ideas here are developed further later on, but in many ways I think Vonnegut may have been better served staying with this whimisical but no less biting style.
Most memorable is the ending which provides the genesis of Douglas Adams's 42 as the meaning of life gag along with several other of Adams' classic ideas, except they are done a lot better here and a lot earlier. This is a very funny novel and probably the best one to start with if you want to try his books.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of Kurt Vonnegut's most ambitious and most convoluted books. It is essentially a social and political satire dressed up in a guise of science fiction book. It contains some of his favorite fantastical themes that have been recurring in many of his other works, such as pliability of time and malleability of personal identity. Most of the characters are over-the-top caricatures, and for the most part they don't seem to be individuals in their own right, or serving the purpose of plot development. The plot, on the other hand, is very convoluted and rather hard to follow. The book feels like a hodge-podge of different ideas and narratives, and it's oftentimes hard to follow. The writing style and themes have echoes of Ray Bradbury, Phillip K. Dick and several other sci-fi writers. However, it retains many of Vonnegut's own stylistic features and regardless of all the criticism it is one of the more original books that I have ever read. I would certainly recommend it to all Vonnegut fans (and I consider myself to be one of them), but I don't think it's one of his better works.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kurt Vonnegut careens from crazed premise to crazed premise like a narrative pinball. A TARDIS in book form, the novel contains more ideas than it seems possible to cram into its 224 pages, with Vonnegut's imagination almost being a chronosynclastic infundibulum of its own, "a place where all truths fit together". And holding it all together is the idea that there is nothing or nobody holding it all together.
Like most of Vonnegut's novels, the humour is fast, sharp and pitch black. In many ways, the story is similar to Voltaire's "Candide", although perhaps more sympathetic. In "Candide", Voltaire's characters are little more than archetypes off which to bounce ideas off, or even collide them headfirst into them. Vonnegut clearly invites us to feel for his characters, despite how repellent and awful they may at first appear.
The new Gollancz edition has much to recommend for itself, being published in a knowingly pulpy format, complete with eyecatching book design and a cheerfully informative foreword by Jasper Fforde.
Like most of Vonnegut's novels, the humour is fast, sharp and pitch black. In many ways, the story is similar to Voltaire's "Candide", although perhaps more sympathetic. In "Candide", Voltaire's characters are little more than archetypes off which to bounce ideas off, or even collide them headfirst into them. Vonnegut clearly invites us to feel for his characters, despite how repellent and awful they may at first appear.
The new Gollancz edition has much to recommend for itself, being published in a knowingly pulpy format, complete with eyecatching book design and a cheerfully informative foreword by Jasper Fforde.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Padded boredom
Phil Davis recommended this on Anne Robison's recent book programme, so I thought it sounded good the way he described it, BUT I struggled to get to the end - have just finished... Read more
Published 15 days ago by Mr. J. R. Sparks
The blueprint for SF-Philosophers to come
Being a huge fan of Douglas Adams' work (The Hitch Hiker's guide to the Universe) I was astonished and almost shocked to learn, that most of his spectacular inventions have been... Read more
Published 4 months ago by E. J. Bucher
Excellent book
I have been working my way through the Kurt Vonnegut collection and I thought that this was the best yet. Definately recomend it.
Published 11 months ago by TReed
An Excellent Novel
Fans of Douglas Adams will love this. Vonnegut was a huge influence on his work, and this novel in particular has clearly shaped many elements of The Hitchhiker's Guide. Read more
Published 14 months ago by C. Stott
Masterwork
One of the best books of Vonnegut and one of the best books I have ever read. It's not as funny as Slaughterhouse five, but it's a very complex, deep and intelligent novel. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Abraham21
Sirens of Titan
Disappointing, I stopped reading Science Fiction when I was about 15, now I know why. Perhaps Science Fact has overtaken Science Fiction
Published 19 months ago by David Straker
Disappointing Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut's writing has always had the amazing effect of entertaining, challenging and thrilling me. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Belmiro Vilela
One of my ALL TIME FAVOURITES!
This book may not be for everyone, but it is one of my all time favourites and I think I have read it twenty or more times over the years. I read it 2 times just last years! Read more
Published on 9 May 2009 by Maya Hiort Petersen
It deserves the title 'SF Masterwork'
For some reason it was America that held the monopoly on the SF satirical novel. Vonnegut, and later Sladek and Sheckley and indeed Dick with his more subtle comedy, produced some... Read more
Published on 15 Aug 2007 by Rod Williams
Superb, bleakly blackly funny and provocotive
This is my first read of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. I can only say i found it gripping. It's imaginative, and so astoundingly modern in its tone, you could be forgiven for thinking it... Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2007 by anon-london
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