Details

Synopsis PLAYER PIANO, Kurt Vonnegut's debut, marked the arrival of a wildly inventive and devilishly satiric voice in American letters. Set in a science fiction dystopia where society is almost entirely run by (and for) machines, Doctor Paul Proteus is one of the privileged few: the engineers that actually maintain the machines. However, he's increasingly disillusioned by the corporate mechanized reality, and eventually becomes the leader of secret revolutionary group known as The Ghost Shirt Society, dedicated to dismantling the machines and reasserting humanity's significance on the planet. However, in the end, their dream is threatened, not only by the machines themselves, but the follies and idiocy of human beings. Upon publication, PLAYER PIANO was considered a minor cult genre fiction novel, but its themes of absurdity, social disruption, and doomed idealism in a science-fiction reality would become significant tropes of Vonnegut's future work.
| Size | | Height: | 7.0 in | | Width: | 4.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 5.6 oz |
Publisher's Notes
First Line: "Ilium, New York, is divided into three parts."
Industry Reviews "PLAYER PIANO is a less earnest book than either CAESER'S COLUMN or THE IRON HEEL, and a less serious one than BRAVE NEW WORLD, but what Mr. Vonnegut lacks in fervor he more than makes up in fun....Whether he is a trustworthy prophet or not, Mr. Vonnegut is a sharp-eyed satirist." (08/17/1952)
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