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Cat’s Cradle
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Cat’s Cradle

novel by Vonnegut
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Cat’s Cradle, science-fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., published in 1963. Notable for its black humour, it is considered one of the author’s major early works.

The novel features two notable inventions: Bokononism, a religion of lies “that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy,” and ice-nine, a type of ice that forms at any temperature up to 114.4 degrees and continues freezing all of the liquid it contacts in a kind of chain reaction. The story’s two principal figures are Bokonon, the religion’s founder, and Dr. Felix Hoenikker, inventor of ice-nine. The narrator, a journalist who calls himself Jonah, confronts the opposing forces of rationality and irrationality.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.