The Sirens of Titan

Malachi Constant is the richest man in a future America, and he takes his run of luck as proof that heaven favours him. Then Winston Niles Rumfoord, a wealthy space explorer, draws him into a scheme of his own.

Rumfoord's ship flew into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum, and he came out changed. He and his dog Kazak now exist as a wave phenomenon, showing up on different planets along a spiral through space. Rumfoord knows both the past and the future.

The plot carries Constant across the Solar System. He is pulled into a war between Earth and Mars, stops on Mercury, and ends up on Titan, the one place where Rumfoord can exist permanently. Rumfoord's wife Beatrice and their son Chrono figure in the story, as does Salo, a messenger from Tralfamadore who is stranded far from home.

Kurt Vonnegut published this second novel in 1959, and it was a finalist for the 1960 Hugo Award for Best Novel. The science fiction satire runs bleak and funny, and behind its odd adventures sits one question: whether luck and free will mean anything if unseen forces steer human history.