CAT'S CRADLE by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1998, Paperback)

Nominated for the Hugo Award in 1964, Kurt Vonnegut's sprawling and brilliant fourth novel turns a bleakly satiric eye on science, technology, religion, politics, and the end of the world. At the center of the tale is the fictional physicist Felix Hoenikker, an inventor of the nuclear bomb, who, in an attempt to eliminate mud for military vehicles, invents a substance called Ice-9 that causes a chain reaction that allows water to freeze at normal temperatures. This apocalyptic substance is split between his three children who use it as a bartering chip to achieve their selfish ends. Eventually, the narrator (ostensibly researching Hoenikker) and Hoenikker's children wind up on a Caribbean island run by a demented dictator seeking to squash the native religion of Bokonism. The novel is filled with irreverent riffs and ingenious tangents, as Vonnegut exposes the underlying inanity of human nature: the read is enjoyable and lively, but laced with dark and devastating truths. Total catastrophe has never been so funny...or so absurdly tragic.

SOME SLIGHT SHELF WEAR, SPINE IS PERFECT. "150" WRITTEN ON BACK PAGE, OTHERWISE IN

EXCELLENT CONDITION