[X] My Assistant

[Paolo]

Hi all
I was wondering whether any of the Titanian lakes will be dedicated to the late Kurt Vonnegut. Here is what he wrote in "The Sirens of Titan" in 1959: "There are three seas on Titan, each the size of Earthling Like Michigan. The waters of all three are fresh and emerald clear. [...] There is a cluster of ninety-three ponds and lakes, incipiently a fourth lake. [...] Connecting the [seas and pools] are three great rivers. These rivers, with their tributaries, are moody - variously roaring, listless, and torn. Their moods are determined by the wildly fluctuating tugs of eight fellow moons, and by the prodigious influence of Saturn"

[stevesliva]

Home, and digging through the shelf now...

In 1931's Spacehounds of IPC by EE Doc Smith, the chapter "A Frigid Civilization" details a visit to the civilization on Titan, not to mention their "crystal city" (primary building material: ice) They meet the spacefaring Titanians somewhere near Ganymede in the previous chapter... but Titan is a bleak white and black world with an atmosphere of mostly oxygen...

For thousands and thousands of years there must have gone on the gradual adaption of bloodstream and tissue to more and more volatile liquids, and to lower and still lower temperatures. ...

What do you make of this chemical solution blood of their's, Steve? asked Nadia, watching the placidly floating Titanian captain.

... I gathered that it is something like polyhydric alcohol and something like a substituted hydrocarbon, and yet different from either in that it contains fluorin in loose combination.

... remember that the vital fluid of life here, animal and vegetable, corresponding to out water, is probably more flammable than gasoline.

But I was wrong, the Titanians were the nice guys, and I was totally confusing them with the Chlorans from a different series.

Man, I love these books, they're such a trip. Sure, some of it is total gibberish, but it's so imaginative.

You can read the rest here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20857/20857-h/20857-h.htm

It is interesting that wikipedia says, "Fan letters in the magazine complained about the novel's containment within the solar system" and yet having first read the novel after Voyager 2 had passed Neptune, I found it to be utterly fascinating, even if there aren't aliens on Ganymede and Callisto and Titan.