Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant, witty and sarcastic - one of Vonnegut's best!
Review: Kurt Vonnegut is a genius and this is one of his best books. If you appreciate irony and originality you'll love it. The plot is one of his most outrageous, involving Martians, mind control, hovering furniture, and a mad scientist and his dog lost in space -- Vonnegut brings it all together. The book is wild and wacky and completely satisfying. Don't call it brain candy-- yes it's fun to read, but one you'll remember this one long after it's over. Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: A Masterpiece
Review: Of all of Vonneguts' Various works, I must say I value this one by far the most. It's not easy to find a novel these days that combines elements of over-the-top absurdity, witty satire, and powerful personal introspection. This is one of those novels that will never be a movie, but always a masterpiece.
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Summary: Remember the Titans
Review: When I read or reread Vonnegut, I often wish to weep: someone so wise, so funny, so irreverant yet reverant, so eloquent, managed to write fifteen to twenty wonderful works after surviving the bombing of Dresden. Hoorah!SIRENS OF TITANS is startlingly mature for a novel written in 1959 (...). The insights about life and reality which one finds all the way through TIMEQUAKE already are fully developed here. What insights? The ones obvious to those with ears to hear: that life is governed by accidents rather than the will of divinity; that the concept of "hell" is hideous and wrong; that humans are capable both of great kindness and great depravity; that irony seems to rule the universe with an iron fist; that despite the pains and hardships of life, there still is an astonishing richness of beauty, of wonder, and much to laugh heartily about. When one finds these last three, one might do best by paraphrasing the words of Vonnegut's dad: "If this isn't nice, what is?" The novel's plot is, as with all classic Vonnegut novels, remarkably serpentine, ingenious, pyrotechnic, comic, and irrelevant. The core of the book is the worldview--but one cannot understand the worldview without experiencing the plot. Form equals content. A neat trick! ... As usual, Vonnegut's SIRENS conjures for me the works of Philip K. Dick, Walter Kaufmann, and Tim Miller. I scarcely expect any readers of this review to be so reminded. And yet I am certain, based upon e-mail responses to my Amazon.com reviews over the years, that there is, in fact, a recognizable thread running through the works of the above authors. In fact, those for whom my words reverberate might do well to trace the thread of my reviews: you will find lots of other fun literary works which most probably will reverberate for you. For the rest of you, forget it. You either get it or you don't. There just ain't no darn sense in trying to explain.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of Vonnegut's best
Review: I'm a huge fan of Kurt Vonnegut, and have read most of his books. This book is not among my favorites. If you're looking for a science fiction book, then you might want to read this ..otherwise I suggest "Breakfast of Champions" or "Bluebeard."
Rating:
Summary: Interesting but way out there
Review: Sirens of Titan is the first Vonnegut book I've read, just finished it a couple days ago. It's a wacky story with some mighty strange characters in it. The story itself is almost nonsensical but Vonnegut has a couple deep messages to get across. A wealthy but irresponsible man named Malachi Constant loses his business to an economic crash but is given an opportunity to escape impending lawsuits by traveling to Mars to join the Martian Army. When Constant arrives, his memory is almost completely erased and he doesn't even remember his name, so people start calling him Unk. Thereafter, Unk goes on a romp to Mercury, back to Earth, to Saturn's largest moon Titan, and finally back to Earth again. His wacky adventures during this time are controlled by an omniscient being (who used to be human) named Winston Niles Rumfoord. Winston in his turn is controlled by another entity who has been controlling the entire human population for millenia. Near the end we discover who this entity is and what its purpose is in controlling us. We learn Vonnegut's satiric explanation for a possible meaning of life in a universe where God exists but doesn't intervene in or even give a flip about human affairs. Well, Sirens never bored me so for that I give it three stars, but after I finished it I couldn't help thinking that it was just kind of a pointless novel. If you're a potential buyer read the many other reviews and you'll see that a lot of people were like Huh? Why is this book sometimes claimed as Vonnegut's best? Beats me. I guess I just prefer a story that goes somewhere and has some kind of concrete conclusion, whether good or bad. It doesn't matter to me if the good guys win or not, but there needs to be closure to a novel! I recommend the average reader to get a used copy or something. I think that only serious fans of dark satire would really enjoy Sirens.
Rating: 
Summary: WEIRD, ABSURD, NOT FUNNY
Review: This might as well be a trip to nowhere. Every chapter and every character is loaded down with the handicaps of futility and absurdity. It seems like the writer was attempting a total escape from rationality. One absurdity, that the entire evolution of mankind was directed to the end of delivering a part to a broken down space ship on Titan, simply leads the reader to the next absurdity. Perhaps it was theater of the absurd, perhaps verbal LSD. Earthlings, kidnapped from earth, are robotonized on Mars in order to invade earth in a futile suicide mission to unite all earthlings in a grand new selfless religion. One absurdity followed by an even bigger absurdity. The beautiful Sirens of Titan, three lovely women, were but statues in a pool who end up uselessly encrusted with green algae. Is there anything in life to admire? Perhaps but to appreciate it you must first lose it.
Rating: 
Summary: not a classic
Review: This is my first and only Vonnegut read, and I must review it based on my expectations of it being a classic in the sense of being literary and original. As far as a being a book of ideas, this does not even qualify as good rehash of old ideas - it is too short and sarcastic to be taken seriously as an examination of the human experience. Whether its purpose be humorous, ironic, or irreverent makes no difference; for someone who reads classics, this will be a bore. The only redeeming quality of the book are the occasional laughs, for which the narrative is but a conveyance. The narrative is so flimsy and uninspiring it makes me wonder how this book remains in print. This is sophomoric trash for light readers -- a lazy attempt at a novel. Suggested reading for absurd, idealistic, humorous literature: Tin Drum by Grass.
Rating:
Summary: Not Science Fiction
Review: This book is not science fiction. It is about real life and one
man's (Vonnegut's) search for meaning in this life. It is about trying to find meaning in a life that seems pointless. It is about finding meaning where there seems to be none. It is about loving for no other reason than to be civil and kind. It is about staring at the cruel indifference of the Universe and finding something in it to hold on to. Anyone who approaches the book as anything other than this is missing the forest for the trees. It is K.V.'s finest achievement, which he will readily admit.
Rating: 
Summary: The Complete Opposite of Phillip K. Dick
Review: This is the first (and so far only) Kurt Vonnegut book I have read. I've seen Slaughterhouse Five, so I was somewhat prepared for the rambling style of Vonneguts work. It's not the type of book you read when you want to be immersed in a realistic story - probably because the characters, the science, and the events are completely absurd. Vonnegut writes his story as a series of short episodes, which are almost like parables. The story is epic in scope, and covers the entire life of Malachi Constant from birth (although it starts with him as a fully grown man) to death, and across three planets. The writing is very original. There is also a very good underlying meaning to this story, about religion and purpose of life, which is missing from popular authors who usually concentrate on human motivation (i.e. Tom Clancy, Steven King, Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Michael Crichton, etc...). Although the premises are sometimes absurd and humerous, I didn't really find anything laugh out loud funny, though some things are clever. It seems like throwaway cleverness in each case, where the author took the first wacky idea that came into his head. This type of unrestrained, clever, philisophical story telling on a cosmic scale has since been emulated by other authors who must have been influenced by this book. Robert Heinlein comes to mind. He wrote straight-forward, militaristic narriatives up until the release of Sirens of Titan, then he wrote "Stranger In a Strange Land", which came out in 1961 (two years after this book). SIASL is also told in the same style, from birth to death, of a human raised on Mars and coming back to earth to start a religion. Anyone who has read these books can't help but notice the similarities. I'd also say Douglas Adams "Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series is also in the same vein, only Adams books are actually laugh out loud satire. The character of Marvin the depressed robot seems very similar to Salo in Vonneguts book. Overall Sirens of Titan is an interesting book without really being entertaining. If you are looking for something original with meaning, this is it.
Rating:
Summary: This is the book that made me want to read.
Review: It's as simple as that.
I was assigned to read this book for my high school creative writing class. At a time where everything was filled with so much "teenage questioning", simply discovering a person that
can write something like this book made me feel okay. I look back on this book and can't describe the details of the plot or articulate the author's style/strategy/whatever else that requires paragraph after paragraph of pondering words. I can only say this... After reading The Sirens of Titan, I needed to read more. I like Kurt Vonnegut because he is someone out there who "gets it" and found a way to publicize it.
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