Cat's Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut (1963)
“A fake religion that admits it's fake turns out to be more honest than science, government, and every institution that claims to tell the truth.”
Short Summary
John, a writer researching what Americans were doing the day the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, becomes entangled with the family of Felix Hoenikker — co-creator of the bomb and inventor of ice-nine, a substance that freezes all water on contact. John's research leads him to the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, a dystopian dictatorship sustained by a banned religion called Bokononism that openly admits all its teachings are lies. When ice-nine is accidentally released, it freezes every body of water on Earth, ending civilization. John survives the apocalypse, becomes a Bokononist, and writes the book we've just read.
Detailed Summary
John — who tells us to call him Jonah — sets out to write a book called 'The Day the World Ended,' about what notable Americans were doing on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima. His research focuses on Dr. Felix Hoenikker, a fictional co-creator of the bomb, described by colleagu...