There is little I can add to the storm of opinion and news surrounding Kurt Vonnegut’s death, so I’ll say simply this: Sirens of Titan and Mother Night are two of the best novels I have ever read. Sirens of Titan is especially interesting for its place in science fiction because Vonnegut wrote the book that Douglas Adams was striving for in the Hitchhiker’s Guide, if only Adams had been more of a novelist and less of a free-wheeling comedian. Vonnegut didn’t just map out the same territory, he chewed it up, and he did it in 1959 — a full generation earlier. This is no slight on Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker’s Guide deserves its place on the genre’s mantelpiece. But Vonnegut was there first, and he was there with greater philosophical rigour while being just as funny.