Cats Cradle - post II

Vonnegut starts to leave the original idea of a writer putting together a book about the normal things that were happening on the day the atom bomb was dropped in the second world war and instead starts to weave together a story around ice-nine, the invention of the late Dr felix Hoenikker, one of the founding fathers' of the atom bomb.

As Vonnegut starts to chase up the leads of the Hoenikker family and starts to pull together the story of the invention of ice-nine there is a distinct gap between the care-free and laid back characters of the 1960s and the sheer horror or the potential invention that could freeze the water on the planet and make the atom bomb look like an very isolated incident. Vonnegut's narrator remains slightly cool with the knowledge and allows coincidences and plot developments to happen around him without too much comment or involvement but you sense that the show down is coming with the Hoenikker children, who each have a chunk of the deadly ice-nine.

More tomorrow...