Kurt Vonnegut - Player Piano

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"Graham Green

has called Mr Vonnegut 'One of the best living

American writers,' and it isn't hard to see why"

ISABEL QUIGLEY, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

From the start of his novelistic career to the present

Vonnegut has been a man with a unigue vision seeking

and finally the most effective manner of

stating it"

HARPER'S

The best of the science fiction anti-utopias - and

indeed the best of the recent anti-utopias - is

Vonnegut's brilliantly satiric Player Piano . . . easily

one of the most important anti-utopias since

Nineteen Elighty-four"

MARK HILLEGAS, THE FUTURE AS NIGHTMARE

"Player Piano is one great classics of

Gadet Age fiction"

LIFE MAGAZINE

"Kurt Vonnegut stands in the some relationship to

American science fiction as J.G. Ballard does to

the British scene - i.e. supreme"

NEW WORLDS

Also by Kurt Vonnegut

In Pather Books

God Bless You Mr Rosewater

Kurt Vonnegut Jr

Player Piano

Panther Science Fiction

Player Piano

A Panther Book

First published in Great Britain

By Macmillan & Co Limited 1953

Reissued 1967

Panther edition published 1969

This book is sold subject to the

Condition that it shall not, by way

of trade or otherwise, be lent,

re-sold, hired out or otherwise

circulated without the publisher's

prior consent in any form of binding

or cover other than that in which

it is published and without a similar

condition including this condition

being imposed on the subsequent

purchaser.

Printed in England by

C. Nicholls & Company Ltd.,

The Philips Park Press, Manchester,

And published by Panther Books,

3 Upper James Street, London W.I.

For Jane - God Bless Her

CONSIDER THE LILLIES OF THE FIELD, HOW THEY GROW:

THEY TOIL NOT, NEITHER DO THEY SPIN;

AND YET I SAY UNTO YOU,

THAT EVEN SOLOMON IN ALL HIS GLORY

WAS NOT ARRAYED LIKE ONE OF THESE . . .

MATTHEW 6:28

Foreword

This book is not a book about what is, but a book about

what could be. The characters are modeled after persons

as yet unborn, or, perhaps, at this writing, infants.

It is mostly about managers and engineers. At this point in

history, 1952 A.D., our lives and freedom depend largely

upon the skill and imagination and courage of our managers

and engineers, and I hope that God will help them to help us

all stay alive and free.

But this book is about another point in history, when there

is no more war, and . . .

CHAPTER ONE

ILIUM, New York, is divided into three parts.

In the northwest are the managers and engineers and civil servants and a few professional

people; in the northeast are the machines; and in the south, across the Iroquois River, is the area

known locally as Homestead, where almost all of the people live.

If the bridge across the Iroquois were dynamited, few daily routines would be disturbed. Not

many people on either side have reasons other than curiosity for crossing.

During the war, in hundreds of Iliums over America, managers and engineers learned to get

along without their men and women, who went to fight. It was the miracle that won the war -

production with almost no manpower. In the patois of the north side of the river, it was the know-

how that won the war. Democracy owed its life to know-how.

Ten years after the war - after the men and women had come home, after the riots had been put

down, after thousands had been jailed under the antisabotage laws - Doctor Paul Proteus was

petting a cat in his office. He was the most important, brilliant person in Ilium, the manager of the

Ilium Works, though only thirty-five. He was tall, thin, nervous, and dark, with the gentle good

looks of his long face distorted by dark-rimmed glasses.

He didn't feel important or brilliant at the moment, nor had he for some time. His principle

concern just then was that the black cat be contented in its new surroundings.

Those old enough to remember and too old to compete said affectionately that Doctor Proteus

looked just as his father had as a young man - and it was generally understood, resentfully in

some quarters, that Paul would someday rise almost as high in the organization as his father had.

His father, Doctor George Proteus, was at the time of his death the nation's first National

Industrial, Commercial, Communications, Foodstuffs, and Resources Director, a position

approached in importance only by the presidency of the United States.

As for the Proteus genes' chances of being passed down to yet another generation, there were

practically none. Paul's wife, Anita, his secretary during the war, was barren. Ironically as anyone

would please, he had married her after she had declared that she was certainly pregnant,

following an abandoned office celebration of victory.

"Like that, kitty?" With solicitousness and vicarious pleasure, young Proteus ran a roll of

blueprints along the cat's arched back. "Mmmmm-aaaaah - good, eh?" He had spotted her that

morning, near the golf course, and had picked her up as a mouser for the plant. Only the night

before, a mouse had gnawed through the insulation on a control wire and put buildings 17, 19,

and 21 temporarily out of commission.

Paul turned on his intercom set. "Katharine?"

"Yes, Doctor Proteus?"

"Katharine, when's my speech going to be typed?"

"I'm doing it now, sir. Ten, fifteen minutes, I promise."

Doctor Katharine Finch was his secretary, and the only woman in the Ilium Works. Actually,

she was more a symbol of rank than a real help, although she was useful as a stand-in when Paul

was ill or took a notion to leave work early. Only the brass - plant managers and bigger - had

secretaries. During the war, the managers and engineers had found that the bulk of secretarial

work could be done - as could most lower-echelon jobs - more quickly and efficiently and

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"GrahamGreenhascalledMrVonnegut'OneofthebestlivingAmericanwriters,'anditisn'thardtoseewhy"ISABELQUIGLEY,SUNDAYTELEGRAPHFromthestartofhisnovelisticcareertothepresentVonneguthasbeenamanwithauniguevisionseekingandfinallythemosteffectivemannerofstatingit"HARPER'SThebestofthesciencefictionanti-utopias-an...

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