1001 Books Round-Up August 2021

Well as you might have guessed from the single image the only 1001 reading I did in August was Cat’s Cradle as part of my Takedown the TBR challenge.

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut – What GR says: Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut’s cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it …

Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding ‘fathers’ of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he’s the inventor of ‘ice-nine’, a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker’s three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker’s Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh… Yes these things happen. No I didn’t get it!

My Thoughts – I have come to the conclusion that Vonnegut is not the author for me. I have read other works and while I find them perfectly good reads (3 stars) I just don’t understand the cult following.

This book imagines the end of the world created by a scientist trying to improve the odds for his national army in a war. (Think atomic bomb) The army have suggested that what would improve the war for them most would be to get rid of the mud that is an intangible part of life on the battlefield…tah dah here we have Ice-Nine a chemical that will freeze any water it has contact with including that in the human body (mutually assured distruction) before he can warn anyone about its deadliness the inventor (along with his dog) die. The remaining Ice-Nine is shared among his unsuspecting children however it takes a dictator in San Lorenzo to release the deadly substance on the world via a series of unforeseen hiccups.

3 Stars – it is kinda interesting and I know Vonnegut has a cult following so read it you may be an cultist without knowing it. Me I am definitely not.

Have you read this? What did you think of it?