Other editions of book Player Piano: A Novel

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.

“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

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class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines.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.

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.