Legal Information Random House v. RosettaBooks ten years later from rosettabooks.com. Retrieved 2012-05-22 William Deresiewicz, in a 2012 retrospective published after a second Library of America collection of Vonnegut's work was released, wrote: [6] The Sirens of Titan is a comic science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr., first published in 1959. His second novel, it involves issues of free will, omniscience, and the overall purpose of human history. Much of the story revolves around a Martian invasion of Earth.

I will abstain from asking myself these questions after a Vonnegut book in future. Best is to try and emulate the sweet sounds of Poo-tee-weet. The Sirens of Titan is an odd satirical twist of a science fiction novel which explores nothing quite as grand as the meaning of life. There are echoes here of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land and Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide, but guess what. Sirens of Titan came first. Legend has it that Vonnegut wrote this in a few hours while at a dinner party. Obviously, some of the ideas were percolating in his head for awhile. Yet while some may be tempted to read this turn of events as “proof” of the Bible’s truth, Noel does not do so. Recalling the growth of his wealth in a letter to Malachi, Noel observes, “I kept my eyes open for some kind of signal that would tell me what it was all about but there wasn’t any signal. I just went on getting richer and richer.” This indicates that the search for meaning relies less on the existence of signs than on how people choose to interpret them. The fact that Noel keeps “getting richer and richer” after investing based on letters in the Bible could easily be interpreted as a “sign” of the truth of Christianity, but Noel does not favor this interpretation. The novel is set in the future, between World War II and the “Third Great Depression,” and opens in Newport, Rhode Island. Malachi Constant, the richest man in the U.S., has arrived to witness the “materialization” of Winston Niles Rumfoord and Winston’s dog, Kazak. Constant was invited to the event, which is taking place on the Rumfoord Estate, by Mr. Rumfoord’s wife, Beatrice. Mr. and Mrs. Rumfoord are extremely rich, with the highest social status in the country. Nine years ago, Mr. Rumfoord drove his spaceship into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, which landed him in a kind of time warp, allowing him to see the past and future. It also means that he materializes on Earth and other planets at regular intervals. Curb-Stomp Battle: The inevitable fate of the Martian force which invades Earth. Which was Rumfoord's plan all along, of course.Here is a brief rundown of the plot (for what it’s worth). The story is told by an unnamed far future historian and takes place over a 40+ year period during the “Nightmare Ages”…“sometime between the Second World War and the Third Great Depression.” The story revolves around 3 main characters are Malachi Constant, the aforementioned Winston Niles Rumfoord and Rumfoord’s wife, Beatrice. Giannone, Richard. Vonnegut (1977): A Preface to His Novels. Literary Criticism Series. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press. Lawler, Donald L. (1977): "The Sirens of Titan: Vonnegut's Metaphysical Shaggy-Dog Story", in Vonnegut in America. An Introduction to the Life and Work of Kurt Vonnegut, eds. JeromeÿKlinkowitz and Donald L. Lawler. New York: Delacorte.

So the ethic of Vonnegut's theology is direct and clear. There is only one commandment: "These words will be written on that flag in gold letters on a blue field: Take Care of the People, and God Almighty Will Take Care of Himself." This mandate requires no complicated exegesis or commentary. Nevertheless it's profundity takes a while to sink in: “It took us that long to realize that a purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.” Eisenhart, Mary (November 12, 1987). Transcript: Jerry Garcia Interview. Verified 30 March 2005. Jerry Garcia discusses Sirens of Titan at length. In 2000 or early 2001, RosettaBooks, an independent e-book publisher, contracted with Vonnegut to publish e-book editions of several of his novels, including The Sirens of Titan. [7] Random House sued RosettaBooks in February 2001, claiming (with respect to Vonnegut) that the contracts he signed with (predecessor-in-interest) Dell in 1967 and 1970 granted Random House e-book publishing rights as well. In July 2001, Judge Sidney H. Stein denied Random House's request for an injunction; in December 2002, Random House and Rosetta Books settled out-of-court, with RosettaBooks retaining the publishing rights that Random House had challenged. [8] Davis, Tom (2009). "Hepburn Heights, The Den of Equity". Thirty-nine Years of Short-term Memory Loss. Grove Press. p. 256. ISBN 978-0-8021-1880-6. Trying to summarize a book by Vonnegut is a very hard task to perform without sounding crazy but I will do my best. One guy, Winston Niles Rumfoord, sets to travel to Mars together with his dog where he falls into a Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum which makes him to repeatedly and periodically materialize in different places. He materializes at his mansion every 50 days or so. During one of his appearances Rumfoord meets with Malachi Constant, the richest man on Earth, and predicts that the latter will travel to Mars, Earth and Titan. He also tells Constant that he will have a child with Rumfoord’s wife. Malachi refuses to believe the prophecy and does anything in his power to disprove it, even selling his stakes in the only company which was producing a ship capable to fly into space. From here, the novel follows a series of extraordinary and absurd events that will lead to the fulfilment of Rumfoors’s words. For people who read Slaughterhouse-five, Tralfamadore makes an appearance here as well.In a 1979 interview released in 2007, Douglas Adams discussed Vonnegut as an influence on The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: [19] but the one i’ll end on is the oldest published ‘no homo’ i have encountered so far. it was so far out of left field that i think i barked a surprised scoff of a laugh when i read it. judge for yourself: “salo didn't think he could stand that because he loved winston niles rumfoord. there was nothing offensive in this love. that is to say, it wasn't homosexual.”hey, 1959? ursula k. le guin is calling from 1969. the left hand of darkness just dropped. any comments? he ends up in the far reaches of the universe, visiting mars and mercury and titan; all in pursuit of the lovely sirens the man with the dog has promised him. and since the man with the dog knows the future, the billionaire eagerly follows his advice.

Kurt Vonnegut, when he wrote Sirens of Titan, was 37 Earth years old, he was 6 feet 2 inches tall and had curly brown hair that his mother, Edith Lieber, called chestnut.

The Tralfamadorian Salo, tangerine-colored mechanical man whose millions of years of lightspeed travel get interrupted by an unexpected landing on the balmy, verdant shores of Titan, also gets the stink-eye from my increasingly myopic baby greens. Winston Niles Rumfoord, the chrono-synclastically infundibulated spacetime sprinter, becomes his buddy? Salo spends inordinate amounts of energy, for a Tralfamadorian, setting WNR (a note to come on these initials) up and making his life on Titan extraordinarily pleasant. That has more than a faint whiff of colonial privilege, Salo being the first inhabitant of Titan though not native to it, who expends all his energies to improve the lot of an ungrateful, entitled newcomer.