THE SIRENS OF TITAN

(1959)

Vonnegut goes all-out sci-fi with this planet-hopping whopper of a space opera. Millionaire playboy Malachi Constant is stripped of both fortune and identity and sent across the solar system in a plot to save the people of Earth from themselves. His ill-fated mission occurs as a series of psychedelic episodes set in the remote corners of the solar system and introduces us to a lovable cast of misfit characters and creatures, including the vibration-grooving Harmoniums that live deep in the caves of Mercury and the faithful messenger robot Salo whose spacecraft is powered by the elusive Universal Will to Become. With this novel, Vonnegut also begins to explore themes of free will and fate, the human desire for meaning and purpose, and the explosion of linear time that became his trademark as a postmodern novelist.

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