
The Sirens of Titan, hardcover first edition
The Sirens of Titan is Vonnegut's second novel, originally published in paperback by Dell in 1959. It is dedicated to "Special Agent" Alex Vonnegut, his uncle, who found it unreadable but said "beatniks" would probably like it.[1] The epigraph is a quote from the character Ransom K. Fern,[2] which is not spoken in the book itself: "Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty-three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules—and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress." It further notes that "All persons, places, and events in this book are real. Certain speeches and thoughts are necessarily constructions by the author. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, since God Almighty protects the innocent as a matter of Heavenly routine."[3]
The story follows the complicated interplanetary travels of Malachi Constant, who begins as the wealthiest man on Earth, later to become a soldier on Mars, a castaway on Mercury, a religious icon back on Earth, and eventually arriving on Titan. The whole while, his progress is watched and manipulated by Winston Niles Rumfoord, a human who entered a Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum and is now capable of seeing, among other things, future events.
It was written at Vonnegut's home in West Barnstable, Massachusetts throughout 1958. The idea was originally pitched to Knox Burger—his former editor at Collier's who now worked at Dell Books—at a cocktail party held by Vonnegut's agents, Ken Littauer and Max Wilkinson, at the end of the previous year.[4] When Knox asked why Vonnegut didn't write another book, he claimed to have an idea for one, which he actually did not, but the two spoke in a bedroom and he created the story on the spot.[5] Vonnegut would later say, however, that the idea "had been cooking up" in his head for some time.[6] Arlene Donovan served as editor.[7]
Plot Summary[]
Chapters 1-3[]
Before everyone knew how to find the meaning of life in themselves, less than a century ago humans looked outward into space for answers. At a time between the Second World War and Third Great Depression, Winston Niles Rumfoord, born of a wealthy New England family, had a private spaceship built and intentionally flew it into a recently discovered Chrono-Synclastic Infundibulum. As a result, he and his mastiff, Kazak, existed as a spiral wave phenomenon stretching from the Sun to the star Betelgeuse. They would rematerialize every 59 days at his Rhode Island estate when the Earth intersected the spiral. Such events became a spectacle, with crowds gathering around the estate. All requests to actually view a materialization were rebuffed by Rumfoord's wife, Beatrice, who did not attend herself. However, during his previous visit, Rumfoord requested that Malachi Constant, the wealthiest man on the planet, most of it inherited, be present. Rumfoord's state also allowed him to see the future as understood by humans, and his invitation mentioned that he and Constant had been well acquainted on Titan, a place Constant had never been. Dawdling in his walk to the house, Constant climbed a fountain made of concentric bowls, waiting until the materialization.[8]
The two met and Constant was intimidated, especially when he learned that Rumfoord could read his mind. Sensing a need for Constant to feel superior in some way, Rumfoord noted that Constant could at least have children. When asked about his superlative good fortune, Constant could only reply that "somebody up there" must like him. The two looked at a painting of a young girl all in white, Beatrice when she was a child. Rumfoord informed Constant that he and Beatrice would be "bred by the Martians—like farm animals". After Mars, Constant would travel to Mercury, Earth again, and finally Saturn's moon Titan. At this point in human history, space travel had ended due to both the cost and the Chrono-Synclastic Infundibula which prevented ships from leaving the vicinity of Earth. American fundamentalist preachers, such as Bobby Denton, saw this as evidence of God's desire that humans stay on their planet. One of the last spaceships, The Whale, was owned by one of Constant's companies. He refused to believe he would travel to Titan, but Rumfoord distracted him with a photograph of three women there, more beautiful than any Constant had ever seen. Rumfoord noted that Beatrice and her son with Constant, Chrono, would be there as well and that he should keep an eye on his son's good luck piece from Mars, since "[i]t's unbelievably important". Rumfoord dematerialized and Beatrice emerged, shocked to find Constant still there, clearly having been told the same tale from Rumfoord. She was further horrified to learn that he had access to The Whale. As Constant left, his limousine was surrounded by the crowd, demanding he tell them what he saw.[9]

Gideon's Bible
Over the next fifty nine days, Constant sold his holding in Galactic Spacecraft, investing it in MoonMist Tobacco, and using the picture of the three women on Titan in an advertising campaign. Meanwhile, Beatrice devoted all her resources to gaining shares in Galactic Spacecraft, to assure that she could control what happened to The Whale. Constant wrote her offensive letters to make himself as disgusting to her as possible, while she bought a capsule of cyanide in case she ever found herself with him. A stock market crash wiped out Beatrice's investments and a rematerialized Rumfoord was unconcerned. Meanwhile, Constant awoke after a fifty-six day party at which he destroyed much of his expensive home, gave away large amounts of his wealth, and married a gangster's moll in Mexico. He learned that Ransom K. Fern, President of his holding company Magnum Opus, was resigning because Constant had lost all his money. The nation's highest paid executive, Fern had worked for Constant's father Noel since the age of 22, nearly four decades earlier. Noel, a traveling salesman, was once staying at the Wilburhampton Hotel in Los Angeles and used a Gideon Bible to produce massive wealth with nothing but luck. With a chambermaid that he married, he conceived Constant but had no part in his upbringing. Fern, then working for the Internal Revenue Services, noticed Noel's anomalous wealth and offered his services to increase it even more by creating Magnum Opus, building headquarters across from the hotel which Noel now owned and where he continued to live.[10]
Noel taught Constant the secret to his wealth on his twenty-first birthday, the only time they would meet, five years before his father's death. Since then Constant had been as financially successful, until now. Fern told him the last of his fortune had been wiped out by likely lawsuits, since it had been proven that MoonMist Cigarettes caused sterility. As his final duty, Fern left a letter from by Noel in his old hotel room, written to his son in case his luck ever ran out. At the hotel bar waiting were George M. Helmholtz and Roberta Wiley, agents for the Army of Mars in disguise as retired school teachers. Constant read his father's note, encouraging him to take advantage of crazy opportunities that present themselves. At that moment, Helmholtz and Wiley entered, offering him a position as an officer in the Army of Mars, which he accepted. The next week, Beatrice watched the launch of The Whale, now named The Rumfoord, leave the planet without her on board. With her were Helmholtz and Wiley, posing as a lawyer from the new mortgage-holders on the estate and his secretary. As part of their survey of the property, they asked about the new metal building on that grounds that looked like a flying saucer and took Beatrice out in the night to see it.[11]
Chapters 4-6[]

Martian surface
Eight years later on Mars, Constant had lost his commission as a lieutenant-colonel three years earlier and become a regular private. As part of this punishment, his memory was erased and a radio antenna implanted in his skull, which gave orders and dispensed punishment for disobedience. Now known as "Unk" among the other soldiers, he was forced to strangle to death a red-haired man in front of the entire division. Before he died, the man told Unk about a letter hidden under a blue stone in barrack twelve. The barracks were divided by units which would each attack a specific country on Earth during a planned Martian invasion. While Unk and his platoon cleaned their nearly antique rifles, he suddenly had a vision of the three women on Titan and said out loud to "[s]ell MoonMist". This drew the attention of Boaz, a young African-American man who appeared to be a fellow solider but was in fact one of the secret real commanders of the Martian Army. He pushed Unk to try to remember more, causing his antenna to flood his body with pain. Unk briefly passed out and the platoon commander, Sgt. Brackman, began chastising Boaz, only to also be stopped by pain from Boaz, who had a controller in his pocket. Boaz was aware of Unk past identity and his continual attempts to remember his life and ask questions, even after having his mind wiped seven times. The red-headed man, Stony Stevenson, was also one of the real commanders who was executed for taking an interest in Unk and his questions.[12]
Unk was able to steal away and find the letter, which purported to be list of everything its writer knew for sure. This included plans for the Martian invasion of Earth, which was the home planet of everyone on Mars, suspicions about Boaz, and his own past as an officer. Much of the information was gathered with the writer's friend, Stony Stevenson. Their most significant discoveries were that Unk had a mate named Bee and a son, Chrono, and that the real leader of the Army of Mars was a man with a large dog who materialized every one hundred and eleven days. Finishing the letter, he found it signed "Unk" and realized he had written it to himself, leaving it for after his memory was cleared. The invasion of Earth began and Unk's company marched through Phoebe, Mars' only city and home of Bee and Chrono. He and Boaz were carrying a large siege mortar together and the latter had them both assigned to the company mother ship, filled with food, sporting goods, recorded music, Bibles, and other recreational items. The ships were built with the help of Salo, a messenger from another galaxy whom Rumfoord met on Titan, where the alien had crashed two hundred thousand years earlier. The Martian fleet was powered by the Universal Will to Become (UWTB), which makes something out of nothingness. Unk used a grenade to cause a distraction and ran off. Planning to reunite with his family and best friend Stony Stevenson, whom he was unaware that he killed, Unk found Chrono at his school where he and his good luck charm—created by a fluke on a field trip to the flame-thrower factory—were the terror of the playing field. After meeting, Chrono had no interest in his father, which devastated Unk.[13]
He then found Bee—whose mind had also recently been wiped after writing a poem—working at a school that teaches Schliemann breathing, a technique that allowed humans to survive in a vacuum or toxic atmosphere. It required taking oxygen pills, called goofballs, absorbed by the small intestines. Although these were necessary on Mars, Schliemann breathing required also plugging the mouth, ears, and nose. Bee, confused and uninterested, also did not respond to Unk's plan for escape. Hearing the authorities coming, Unk taped his mouth and nose shut, attempting to blend in with Bee's students. However, not having taken a goofball in several hours, he passed out. He awoke on the mother ship just as the rest of the soldiers left for the invasion of Earth. There he met with Rumfoord, commander-in-chief of the Martian Army, who told Unk the story of a Martian officer who raped a woman on a spaceship en route to Mars, who bore his child. Having been told by a fortune teller that this would happen, the officer fell into despair and became useless as a soldier, requiring his mind to be wiped. Not realizing it was his own life story, Unk was unmoved. Suddenly, Boaz arrived and Rumfoord sent the two on their way along with the invasion fleet, but not before telling Unk that the woman in the story was a virgin, calling it a "[p]retty good joke on her husband".[14]
Chapters 7-9[]
The Martian War lasted 67 days, with attacks on every nation of Earth. While Earth's deaths numbered just short of 500, nearly 150,000 were killed on the Martian side, with over 46,000 missing with fewer than 500 survivors. Although the Martian ships were the most advanced in the Solar System, the troops were badly armed and, once they lost their real commanders, fought poorly and without coordination. After briefly occupying the Moon, 500 Martian Imperial Commandos were obliterated by 276 thermonuclear strikes which made the surface uninhabitable for ten million years. Several waves of forces were easily defeated until unarmed women and children were sent, many killed before it was clear that they posed no threat. The entire war, which was designed to be lost, was headed by Rumfoord, assisted by his butler Earl Moncrief who coordinated from Earth. During a materialization on the day the war ended, Rumfoord presented the people with a new religion, the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, which would unite humanity. Meanwhile, Bee and Chrono were the only survivors on their ship when it crashed into the Amazon Rain Forest. Unk and Boaz had actually been sent to Mercury and on the way Unk destroyed Boaz's pain controller.[15]

Mercury
Seventy nine days later, the two arrived at Mercury, although they believed they were landing on Earth. The ship began descending through a large hole into a complicated series of tunnel, the automatic pilot seeking the deepest possible landing spot, 116 miles below the surface. Unaware of where they really were, Unk and Boaz opened the ship's door to the total vacuum, which injured them badly. After they recovered, they practiced Schliemann breathing to go outside, where the cave walls glowed a jonquil-yellow light. The only life they found were paper-thin diamond-shaped creatures about a foot high, later called harmoniums. They fed on natural vibrations that occur due to the temperature difference between Mercury's two hemispheres. When cave light passed through harmoniums, they appeared aquamarine. The two attempted to turn the ship back on, but it simply banged against the cave ceiling and returned to the floor. Unk looked out the ship window and saw a large number of harmoniums spelling out the phrase "IT'S AN INTELLIGENCE TEST".[16]
The two lived together on the spaceship for a year until Unk tried to strangle Boaz when he brought in a "cute" harmonium that looked identical to all the others. While Unk began wandering up the tunnels for several miles up until stopped by the cold, Boaz built a comfortable, well-furnished home near the ship that they both used as a common storehouse. Boaz kept a few favored harmoniums with him and sometimes played recorded music outside for the rest to enjoy. However, he needed to keep watch on them since they could overdose and die from the pleasure of too many vibrations. All this time, the harmoniums continued to spell messages—constructed secretly by Rumfoord, who appeared on Mercury every fourteen days—emphasizing the fairness of their test. After two years apart, Unk found footprints from a dog and human in the dust of a cave. He looked up and saw five words written in harmoniums that answered the puzzle of the ship. Rushing down to the lower level, he found Boaz in the middle of playing a recording. Dragging him into the spaceship, Unk told him the solution to get them out of the caves. Boaz replied that this explained the messages he'd seen from the harmoniums, saying that they loved him and begging him not to go. When Unk laughed, Boaz grabbed him before remembering that he left the music playing. Using a power wench in Mercury's low gravity, Unk was able to implement the solution—turn the ship upside down—before Boaz returned, carrying dozens of dead harmoniums. Devastated, he told Unk that he planned to stay behind with the harmoniums, saying people had never been of use to him, but here if he's responsible, he could do good without doing anyone harm. Boaz, who knew that the man Unk killed on Mars was his friend Stony, implored Unk not to "truth" him about whether the harmoniums really cared for him, and he wouldn't "truth" Unk, a comment which had always made Unk uneasy.[17]
Chapters 10-12[]
Unk landed near a Church of God the Utterly Indifferent in West Barnstable, Massachusetts under the Reverend C. Horner Redwine. Known as "The Church of the Weary Space Wanderer", it was prophesied that "a lone straggler from the Army of Mars would arrive" and a garment that would fit only him was kept in the church. No one, not even the Space Wanderer, would know his name. Like all members of the religion, Redwine hung a Malachi at the end of a noose, symbolizing "a repellent way of life that was no more", and voluntarily handicapped himself with weights as part of a system designed to ensure equality between all members. Spotting Unk, Redwine rang the bell to inform the others that the Space Wanderer had arrived. Terrified at the clamor, Unk rushed back to the ship to hide as townspeople came to celebrate. Eventually, Unk allowed Redwine in, who was carrying the suit, which fit Unk perfectly. Redwine explained that it had already been foretold what Unk would say to the people. As Unk emerged from the ship, the people asked him what happened to him. He replied that he "was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all". Elated, the people hoisted him aboard the town firetruck, which took him to the Rumfoord Estate for an imminent materialization, with believers hailing him along the way.[18]
Bee and Chrono, now a juvenile delinquent, ran a concession stand at the Rumfoord Estate selling Malachis, having been rescued from the Amazon Basin by a helicopter sent by Rumfoord. Thousands of pilgrims awaited the arrival of the Space Wanderer and the estate had been modified with ramps and platforms to allow for a grand, dramatic display. Unk arrived and a smiling but sickly-looking Rumfoord asked if the grounds looked familiar. Unk recalled the fountain and Rumfoord himself from Mars. Bee and Chrono were also brought before the crowd and stood awkwardly with Unk while Rumfoord denounced Malachi Constant, who wasted his good fortune in shallow endeavors, believing he had been blessed by God. Rumfoord revealed to the crowd that Unk was once Constant and told him that, as "a central symbol of wrong-headedness for a perfectly enormous religious sect", he would soon ascend a long ladder to a waiting spaceship which would take him to exile on Titan. In this voluntary self-sacrifice, Constant would seemingly take all mistaken ideas with him. He paused at the foot of the ladder and Rumfoord asked if he could name one good thing he had done in his life that might mitigate his fate. Constant mentioned his best friend Stony, and Rumfoord informed him that he was the man that Constant killed on Mars. Weeping, Constant climbed the ladder. Bee was then revealed to be Rumfoord's wife Beatrice, who would also travel to Titan as a symbol of reluctance, arrogance, and imagined purity. Beatrice and Chrono agreed to go, not for Rumfoord and his followers, but because humanity disgusted them.[19]

Titan and rings of Saturn
For unknown reasons, the spiral that described Titan's orbit around the Sun exactly coincided with the spiral of Rumfoord and Kazak as wave phenomenon, meaning they were perpetually materialized on Titan. They lived in an estate that was a reproduction of the Taj Mahal with a pool containing statues of the three women from Rumfoord's photograph. His only neighbor was Salo, the eleven million years old Tralfamadorian, all of whom were machines. Half a million years earlier, he had been chosen by his people to deliver a message—which he was not allowed to open—to as far a point as he could reach. Two hundred thousand years ago, a small part of his ship failed near Titan and he sent a message home that would take 150,000 years to arrive. Utilizing the UWTB, Tralfamadore replied more quickly using several large, ancient building projects on Earth, such as Stonehenge and the Great Wall of China, saying the replacement part was on its way. Salo had never shared this information with Rumfoord—who he assumed would be offended that Earth's history had been so manipulated—because of his love for him and fear of losing his only friend.[20]
When he visited Rumfoord to inform him of the imminent arrival of Constant, Beatrice, and Chrono, Salo found him and Kazak in great pain due to a storm on the Sun that would soon eject them from the solar system. Rumfoord revealed that he was aware that he and the rest of Earth had been manipulated to deliver Salo's replacement part. He requested, in the name of their friendship, that Salo tell him what the message he carried said. He refused and Rumfoord responded that he never wished to speak with him again. Constant, Beatrice, and Chrono arrived, and Rumfoord explained to them the tampering of the Tralfamadorians and that Chrono's good luck piece was Salo's replacement part. Now that it had been delivered, Rumfoord, before vanishing, mused that perhaps humanity would be allowed to follow their own inclinations. Just then, Salo arrived, having broken his programming and opened the message, which read simply "Greetings". Finding Rumfoord gone, Salo committed suicide by taking himself apart and scattering his pieces. Chrono threw his good luck piece among them.[21]
Epilogue[]
Constant and Beatrice grew old together on Titan and fell in love a year before their deaths. Chrono, at the age of seventeen, joined one of the native species, the Titanic bluebirds. Constant became self-sufficient from Titan's available resources, which pleased him, and passed the time by idly attempting to repair Salo. Beatrice lived in Rumfoord's old home, composing a book refuting the idea that the purpose of human beings was to deliver Salo's replacement part. One day while Constant cleaned the pool with the three statues, which had become clogged with slimy algae, Beatrice died. Chrono appeared at the grave, thanking his parents for his life before flying off. Salo, having been repaired enough by Constant to complete the job himself, decided to finish delivering his message and offered Constant a ride back to Earth. He agreed, wanting to be dropped off in Indianapolis, about which he knew nothing except that it was the first place in the United States where a white man was hanged for murdering a Native American. Worried, Salo decided to hypnotize Constant so that just before he died, he would at least see something to bring him peace and satisfaction. He was dropped off at a bus stop in the middle of the night and on account of snow, the bus was delayed for several hours. Constant died before it arrived, but in his last moments, he saw Stony Stevenson appear in a diamond-encrusted spaceship to take him to Paradise, where everyone is happy forever, who told Constant that somebody up there must like him.[22]
Introduction in The Easton Press Edition[]
In 1990, The Easton Press released a special edition printing fully bound in leather with a satin-ribbon marker, gilded page ends, and a hubbed spine inlaid with 22 karot gold. It addition to artwork by Richard Powers, it featured a new introduction by Vonnegut, dated November 1989 from New York City.
Summary[]
Seven years between books is a long time for a free-lance writer, but it was a lack of money, not ideas, that caused this. Short stories for magazines were Vonnegut's main source of income at the time and paid the same as he got for a novel, about three thousand dollars. But soon magazines were being killed off by television, a better buy for advertisers. Writing for television, which he did a bit, only paid about a third as much. Vonnegut's repeated concern in his work about what technology does to humans is in fact his own life story.
Its whole life, this book "has been a bag lady or waif", but now it "is laid to rest" between leather covers. Like most paperback originals, it was never reviewed, nor was Mother Night until fifteen years after it was released, by Doris Lessing in the New York Times. This book has several typographical errors, most notably in the epigram which refers to "Random K. Ferm". Vonnegut says to fix this now "would be like removing the birthmark from the forehead of Mikhail Gorbachev".[23] The Rumfoords deliberately have much in common with Eleanor and President Franklin Roosevelt, "exemplars of Yankee aristocratic virtue".[24] The current president at the time of this writing was too busy fighting flag burning to mention the discoveries of the Voyager spacecraft, "the greatest achievement ever of humankind", now leaving the Solar System in which this novel takes place.[25]
Reception[]
Vonnegut himself often held The Sirens of Titan in high regard. In a New York Times article on June 4, 1967 called "Reading Your Own", several authors were asked which novel each wrote that would give them particular pleasure to read again. Other participants included Anthony Burgess, John Updike, and Isaac Bashevis Singer. Stating that he can't stand to read what he writes, leaving that to his wife, Vonnegut said if he had to read one of his novels, it would be The Sirens of Titan, which Dell had recently re-released. Calling it "the only book that was pleasant to write", he noted he hadn't written a book in several years before it, "so all this loony stuff came pouring out". He felt "euphoric" about it since he didn't think anyone would read it anyway. People who say they've found meaning in the book "must be as batty" as Vonnegut himself was at the time. While it may be possible there are deep messages, he's not planning to investigate too hard and asked if he can read Edward Wallant's Tenants of Moonbloom instead.[26]

Saul Bellow, 1964.
When Harper & Row planned to have writers compose prefaces for their older works, Vonnegut intended to do one for this novel. He said he would use the opportunity challenge Saul Bellow's argument that a "writer should not think of himself as a shaman", whereas Vonnegut thinks that's exactly what a writer should be.[27] In a 1969 letter to his publisher, Sam Lawrence, he inquired about the possibility of printing "an attractive edition" of The Sirens of Titan, since he'd received many letters that "indicate that people like that book best of all", even though it has a "ghastly cover".[28] He would once refer to it as "[e]very mother's favorite child" since it was "delivered by natural childbirth".[5] He called it the closest he ever came to "automatic writing" which happened quickly and easily.[29] In 1973, Vonnegut declared it his "own favorite book",[30] and in his self-evaluation in Palm Sunday, he graded it an "A", just shy of the highest "A+" level, reserved for Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five.[31]
It was a finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Novel, losing to Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein.[32] Due to the nomination, Houghton Mifflin printed 2500 hardback copies to meet the demand from public libraries. The pages of the Dell printing were photographically reproduced and slightly enlarged for this version, printed in February 1961.[4] In March 1960, the company had at least briefly considered releasing the novel with Player Piano and the as-yet-uncompleted Cat's Cradle in a single edition. However, this latter novel, which Vonnegut thought he was "capable of doing now", would not be released until 1963, after Mother Night.[33] Macmillan also expressed interesting in publishing the novel in England.[34] The hardback re-release led to one of the book's few reviews, in the December 1961 edition of Galaxy Magazine. Giving it 4.5 stars out of 5, Floyd C. Gale wrote that it is a "bitter satire" based around a "weird triangle" headed by the manipulation of Rumfoord, a "tangled, intricate and tortuous" story, but one that, "though exasperating, is a joy of inventiveness".[35]

Douglas Adams
In a 1978 article published in the New York Times Magazine on science fiction, astronomer Carl Sagan praised the book as a "superb epistemological novel". Its conception of Titan as possessing a pleasant environment gained some interest among planetary scientists since it had been shown that the moon has "a dense atmosphere and perhaps higher temperatures than expected". He pointed out that Vonnegut was a physics major at Cornell and "naturally knowledgeable about the latest findings in astronomy". In 1944 this included the discovery of methane on Titan, the first satellite known to have an atmosphere.[36] Writer Douglas Adams also spoke highly of the novel in a 1979 interview. Having read it "six times now, and it gets better every time", he says it at first seems "very loosely, casually written" with an ending that almost accidentally makes sense. It's only on repeated readings that one realizes it's "an absolute tour de force".[37]
Adaptations[]

Stuart Gordon, 2007.
In 1977, the Organic Theater Company, based in Madison, Wisconsin, produced a stage adaptation, designed by James Maronek and directed by Stuart Gordon, the company's founder and future film director. It utilized a simple set with some furniture and "a white backdrop curtain as a space-time warp to suggest the permeability of the dimensional limits of the story".[38] It starred Joe Mantegna, as well as Dennis Franz, who played Rumfoord, Keith Szarabajka as Stony Stevenson, and Gordon's wife Caroline as Beatrice and had the approval and input of Vonnegut himself. The Sacred Fools Theater Company of Los Angeles put on a 40th anniversary revival to close their 20th season in 2017, directed by Ben Rock, with an updated adaptation by Gordon. The production received praise from, among others, Robert Weide.[39]
Jerry Garcia of The Grateful Dead spent several years working on a film adaptation of of the novel. In January 1983, Vonnegut noted to Weide that The Sirens of Titan was still under option, but it was not likely to be renewed that year.[40] However, in early December 1983, comedian Tom Davis began working with Garcia in Marin County to produce a screenplay of what he said was the favorite book of them both.[41] When discussing appropriate music for the scene of the Martian war, Davis proposed Holst's "Mars the Bringer of War" from The Planets, but Garcia insisted it should be "Dixieland rag with kazoos". They also worked together at writing "bad poetry" for Bea [sic] to compose on Titan.[42]

Jerry Garcia, 1977.
The first draft was completed in January 1985 and within a few months Gary Gutierrez of Colossal Studios was working on storyboards and illustrations. In terms of casting, they considered Bill Murray as appropriate for Constant and perhaps John Lithgow as Rumfoord. At a lunch in Manhattan with Murray and Columbia Pictures executive Shel Schrager, the latter suggested Davis direct the film, which he declined.[43] In a November 1987 interview, Garcia said that the film was a personal project and he had the patience to make sure it was done well and not "fall into the hands of a hack". He said that he and Davis continued to work on the screenplay, focusing on the three main characters, as there aren't actually many sub-plots since they all converge. Garcia discussed the project in New York with Jonathan Demme, who had directed a Vonnegut-adapted work before. Although he believed Vonnegut's novels generally would not film well—since his voice is so crucial to the overall feel—Garcia thought this and Mother Night were exceptions. He said that since he first read it around 1961, he'd seen the book as a movie in his head so clearly that he believed he could even direct it.[44]
The film rights had originally been sold to Garcia outright, but a clause in the contract allowed Vonnegut to buy the rights back for the purchase price if the film was not put into production within a certain time.[45] When the project ended with Garcia's death, Vonnegut did so by January 1996. Robert Weide planned to direct it as his next Vonnegut project after Mother Night. Vonnegut also expected to participate, doing it exactly as they felt it should be done, without studio interference.[46] Despite a long-standing desire to direct a film based on the book, Weide lost the rights by August 2006.[45] Shortly after Vonnegut death in April 2007, screenwriter James V. Hart announced that he had been working on a film adaption with his son Jake and in consultation with Vonnegut during the script's early development. He called it the "story of the entire history of mankind on this planet" and said the two of them were also working on an adaptation of Cat's Cradle.[47] This project never came to fruition, and in July 2017, Dan Harmon was attached to a television adaptation by Universal Cable Productions, airing on perhaps NBC, USA, or Syfy.[48] However, as of 2024, no adaptation of The Sirens of Titan has gone into production.
- ↑ "Chapter X: Embarrassment", Palm Sunday, pp. 185-186.
- ↑ Misprinted as "Ferm" in all editions except the Library of America collection.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pg. 312.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 "Notes on the Texts", Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pg. 820.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "The Masks of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.", Richard Todd, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, William Rodney Allen, ed., pg. 35.
- ↑ Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation about Writing, Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer, 1999, pg. 66.
- ↑ "September 21, 1979", Letters, pg. 269.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 313-321.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 321-341.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 341-364.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 364-374.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 375-393.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 394-412.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 412-424.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 425-437.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 438-445.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 446-458.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 459-469.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 470-493.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 494-500.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 501-519.
- ↑ The Sirens of Titan, Vonnegut: Novels & Stories 1963-1973, pp. 520-532.
- ↑ The Library of America edition does correct this error, see pg. 311.
- ↑ In a 1974 interview, John Casey asked if Rumfoord was inspired by FDR, with "the cigarette holder, high Groton tenor, and details like that", and Vonnegut told him that no one else had ever commented on that, and that Roosevelt was in fact a "key figure in the book". ("Kurt Vonnegut, Jr", Joe David Bellamy and John Casey, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, William Rodney Allen, ed., pg. 159.) Stuart Gordon would also note this in his 1977 stage adaptation. ("The Sirens of Titan", Sacred Fools Theater Company.)
- ↑ "Introduction", The Sirens of Titan (1990), pp. vii-ix.
- ↑ "Reading Your Own", The New York Times, June 4, 1967.
- ↑ "September 12, 1967", Letters, pg. 135.
- ↑ "February 9, 1969", Letters, pg. 147.
- ↑ "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr", Joe David Bellamy and John Casey, in Conversations with Kurt Vonnegut, William Rodney Allen, ed., pg. 158.
- ↑ "August 1, 1973", Letters, pg. 202.
- ↑ "Chapter XVIII: The Sexual Revolution", Palm Sunday, pp. 311-312.
- ↑ "1960 Hugo Award", The Hugo Award.
- ↑ "March 10, 1960", Letters, pg. 80.
- ↑ "June, 1960", Letters, pg. 82.
- ↑ "Galaxy's 5 Star Shelf", Galaxy Magazine, December 1961, pg. 144.
- ↑ "Growing Up with Science Fiction", Carl Sagan, The New York Times Magazine, May 28, 1978, pg. 30.
- ↑ "Douglas Adams: The First and Last Tapes, Part I", Darker Matter, Ian Shircore.
- ↑ "The Organic Theater to present 'The Sirens of Titan'", University of California, San Diego, Mandeville Special Collections Library.
- ↑ "The Sirens of Titan", Sacred Fools Theater Company.
- ↑ "January 12, 1983", Letters, pg. 293.
- ↑ "Chapter 21: Hepburn Heights, the Den of Equity", Tom Davis, Thirty-Nine Years of Short Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL From Someone Who Was There, pg. 249.
- ↑ "Chapter 21: Hepburn Heights, the Den of Equity", Tom Davis, Thirty-Nine Years of Short Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL From Someone Who Was There, pg. 255.
- ↑ "Chapter 21: Hepburn Heights, the Den of Equity", Tom Davis, Thirty-Nine Years of Short Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL From Someone Who Was There, pg. 256.
- ↑ "Jerry Garcia Interview: November 12, 1987", Mary Eisenhart.
- ↑ 45.0 45.1 "Sirens of Titan", Whyaduck Productions.
- ↑ "January 6, 1996", Letters, pg. 364.
- ↑ "Exclusive: Kurt Vonnegut's 'Sirens Of Titan' Being Adapted For Big Screen", Shawn Adler, MTV News, April 13, 2007.
- ↑ "Rick And Morty Co-Creator Dan Harmon Has A Completely Unexpected New Show In The Works", Laura Hurley, Cinemablend, Jul 18, 2017.