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Synopsis:
It's the end of the world...
Review:
Well, surprisingly enough, me being a rabid Kurt Vonnegut fan and all, I like this book.
There isn't really much you say, as the story pretty much relies on progressive revelation, but I'll do my best not to give too much away.
Although I've already mentioned how it ends...
Anyway, the end of the world itself (which isn't the actual end of the world, just the death of almost all plant and animal life) doesn't happen until the end of the book, and much of the rest of the book isn't even concerned with it - although it is, kinda, in that it follows the people who cause the end of the world.
They don't do it on purpose, by the way. And it wasn't the usual mass-weapons-of-destruction apolcalypsey situation, just a socially inept scientist, his kids, the slightly mad (and dead) ruler of a country that nobody in the world world gives a toss about, and a meaningless accident. Which is a better way to go than most. Besides, giving people who control massive nuclear arsenals delusions of grandeur probably isn't a good idea. Although I doubt people who control massive nuclear arsenals read much sci-fi. Which I'm quite glad about, if we've got to have people with the ability to kill everything on the planet, we don't want them to be people with much imagination.
Anyway, going back to the book, I'm not sure that I quite get ice-9 - if anyone feels like explaining it to me in very simple terms, please feel free. Or maybe it's just an excuse for the story to work, and so I shouldn't try to understand it.
There's another invented religion in this one. Vonnegut invents better religions than most religious leaders - although his actually make sense, so they wouldn't be very popular with religious people. Although, having said that, I'm sure there are little pockets of followers of Jesus Christ the Utterly Indifferent and Bokonon all over the place. People will believe in anything.
Conclusion: I think you should read this book. I think everyone should read anything he's ever written.
Such gloriously unbiased reviews...
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