Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle is an innovative science fiction satire that preys on our innermost anxieties of witnessing Armageddon?and, worse than, enduring it. It is written with his signature dry wit. Benjamin Kunkel's introduction is included in this Penguin Modern Classics edition. One of the "fathers" of the atomic bomb, Dr. Felix Hoenikker, has left a devastating legacy for mankind. He created the deadly chemical ice-nine, which has the power to completely freeze the earth. In his quest to find himself, writer Jonah encounters three oddball youngsters named Hoenikker, a Caribbean island nation where the bizarre religion of Bokononism is practised, love, and madness. Kurt Vonnegut's classic tale of planetary doom, told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, is a terrifying and funny satire on the end of the world and the madness of mankind.