Books with title Player Piano: A Novel

“A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco ChronicleKurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.Praise for Player Piano“An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

“A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco ChronicleKurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.Praise for Player Piano“An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

Kurt Vonnegut's first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul's rebellion is vintage Vonnegut – wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of Kurt Vonnegut's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Gay Talese about the life and work of Kurt Vonnegut – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

This tale of a battle between a businessman and an environmentalist is “one of the great novels of Alaska and its convoluted coast and history” (Kim Stanley Robinson, New York Times–bestselling author of New York 2140). 2017 WILLA Literary Award Winner in Contemporary Fiction Axel Hagerman has made a killing in the remote Alaskan town of Good River Harbor by selling off the spruce, the cedar, the herring, and the halibut. But when he decides to export the water from a salmon stream, he runs headlong into young Nora Montgomery, just arrived on the ferry with her piano and her dog. Nora has burned her bridges in the Lower 48, and she aims to disappear into this new homeland, with her piano as her anchor. But when Axel’s next business proposition, a bear pit, turns lethal, Nora has to act. The clash, when it comes, is a spectacular and transformative act of resistance. “A thoroughly engaging tale featuring vividly drawn characters who grab our interest from the very first pages . . . Moore writes so eloquently and with such passion about the natural world, from tiny tide pool inhabitants to giant grizzlies and towering hemlocks, that she leaves the reader in wonder and awe.” —Booklist (starred review)

Player Piano, author Kurt Vonnegut's first novel, was published in 1952. It is a dystopia of automation, describing the dereliction it causes in the quality of life. The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines. The book uses irony and sentimentality, which were to become a hallmark developed further in Vonnegut's later works.

2017 WILLA Literary Award Winner in Contemporary Fiction Short-listed for the ASLE Environmental Creative Book Award "Moore writes so eloquently and with such passion about the natural world . . . that she leaves the reader in wonder and awe." ―Booklist, starred review In Piano Tide, the debut novel by award-winning naturalist, philosopher, activist, and author Kathleen Dean Moore, we are introduced to town father Axel Hagerman, who has made a killing in the remote Alaskan town of Good River Harbor by selling off the spruce, the cedar, the herring, and the halibut. But when he decides to export the water from a salmon stream, he runs headlong into young Nora Montgomery, just arrived on the ferry with her piano and her dog. Nora has burned her bridges in the Lower 48, and she aims to disappear into this new homeland, with her piano as her anchor. But when Axel’s next business proposition, a bear pit, turns lethal, Nora has to act. The clash, when it comes, is a spectacular and transformative act of resistance.

Do we belong to the Earth or does the Earth belong to us? The question raised by Chief Seathl almost two centuries ago continues to be the defining quandary of the wet, wild rainforests along the shores of the Pacific Northwest. It seethes below the tides of the fictional town of Good River Harbor, a little village pressed against the mountains—homeland to bears, whales, and a few weather-worn families.In Piano Tide, the debut novel by award-winning naturalist, philosopher, activist and author Kathleen Dean Moore, we are introduced to town father Axel Hagerman, who has made a killing in this remote Alaskan harbor by selling off the spruce, the cedar, the herring and halibut. But when he decides to export the water from a salmon stream, he runs head-long into young Nora Montgomery, just arrived on the ferry with her piano and her dog. Nora has burned her bridges in the lower 48, and she aims to disappear into this new homeland, with her piano as her anchor. But when Axel’s next business proposition, a bear pit, turns lethal, Nora has to act. The clash, when it comes, is a spectacular and transformative act of resistance.

Player Piano tells the story of a man named Paul Proteus. He lives sometime in the not-too-distant future in the United States, in the aftermath of a grand world war which has given birth to a massive mechanization of the entire country. His father pioneered the birth of the society and he is following in his father's footsteps as a major manager of a plant in Ilium: futuristic New York. He becomes more and more dissatisfied with what turns out to be their very unfair and unfulfilling new way of life, and finally drops his former life as a plant manager to take part in a revolution against the authority. He is swept along with the events of their rebellion entirely out of his control, and at the end of the novel, they appear to be successful in disshelving the machines- but with the dreary reminder that they will always eventually return, and history will come full circle once more.