The Sirens of Titan

The Sirens of Titan takes place on other planets but it's not really science fiction. There's no science. Somehow I got the feeling that even Kurt Vonnegut didn't know where this story was going when he wrote it. It's satirical, but not of anything in particular - well, maybe religion, but that's a given.

Near the end, we learn that the whole point of everything that has happened is to get a replacement part for the space ship of a Tralfamadorian who's been stranded on Titan for 200,000 years, but it never really becomes clear what the point of the book is. Most satires are making fun of something, but this one maybe is too subtle for me. I never thought of Vonnegut as being particularly subtle, absurd yes, but not subtle. This is certainly an absurd novel - not Vonnegut's best, but it's not bad.