Cat's Cradle

Vonnegut doesn't really write science fiction, nor is this, at heart, an apocalyptic book - his work is firmly rooted in a tradition of absurdist critique. Just as Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat's Cradle starts as a book about a writer wanting to write a book. And also Cat's Cradle is war related, as the yet-to-be written book will be about the (fictional) father of the atom bomb, Felix Hoenikker. It quickly evolves into a travelogue of the protagonist visiting San Lorenzo, a fictional Caribbean island with a fictional dictator, on which the children of Hoenikker find themselves in possession of the final remnants of their father's last invention, Ice-9, a chemical with the potential to destroy the world. And, importantly, everybody on the island is a Bokononist, followers of a fictional religion.

Bokononism's main creed is that truth is problematic, and that we should all just live by the harmless untruths that make us happy. Humanity's ability to lie to ourselves is probably the most important theme in the book.

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