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Cat's Cradle is a 1963 science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The plot concerns the search for a substance called ice-nine, a hypothetical alternative structure for water which is solid at room temperature. The book follows the history of the creation and eventual "release" of ice-nine in a bombing, leading to the decimation of life on Earth as all water turns to ice-nine.
The book also describes an imaginary religion, Bokononism, together with several concepts that are central to it. Amongst these are:
- karass - a group of people who, unknown to them, are doing God's will.
- granfalloon - a false karass, i.e. a group of people who think they are doing God's will but are not.
- wampeter - the central point of a karass.
- Dear Reader: The title of this book is composed of three words from my novel Cat's Cradle. A wampeter is an object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve. The Holy Grail would be a case in point. Foma are harmless untruths, intended to comfort simple souls. An example: "Prosperity is just around the corner." A granfalloon is a proud and meaningless association of human beings. Taken together, the words form as good an umbrella as any for this collection of some of the reviews and essays I've written, a few of the speeches I made.
The title of the book derives from the string game "cat's cradle".
Note: Vonnegut's fictional ice-nine is not to be confused with the real substance Ice-IX (also pronounced "ice-nine"), which does not have the properties of Vonnegut's fictional ice-nine. See the article on ice for more details.
