Although I am of course a fan of space exploration and of finding out new things about our universe, I’m sort of glad to see that Saturn’s moon Titan is retaining its air of mystery for now. Several long-time sf favourites of mine were set on Titan in whole or in part, incuding Roger Zelazny’s short short story “The Bands of Titan”, Kurt Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, Arthur C Clarke’s underrated Imperial Earth, Greg Benford and Gordon Eklund’s over-rated If The Stars Are Gods, and John Varley’s eponymous trilogy. It’s nice not to have one’s youthful illusions spoiled as yet. Though I rather doubt that it will turn out to be like John Varley’s version, let alone Kurt Vonnegut’s.

Books I haven’t read set on Titan (I suppose):

Stephen Baxter, Titan
Philip K Dick, The Game Players of Titan
Edmond Hamilton, [Captain Future and] The Harpers of Titan
James Patrick Hogan, Code of the Lifemaker
Alan E Nourse, Trouble on Titan
Ben Bova, As on a Darkling Plain
Manley Wade Wellman, Sojarr of Titan

Are any of these (or indeed any others not on my list) worth reading, folks?

Also of course there’s the infamous film Saturn 3, which I haven’t seen, with screenplay by Martin Amis of all people, starring Kirk Douglas, Karvey Keitel and Farrah Fawcett. I think I’ll give that one a miss.