The Dystopic Automation Nightmare in Vonnegut’s Player Piano
The Dystopic Automation Nightmare in Vonnegut’s Player Piano

Summary/Abstract: Kurt Vonnegut, like Isaac Asimov, was an outstanding SF author who dealt with imagined and all-too-real consequences of the increasing power of the machine world at the expense of the human world. Quite significantly, the two authors were distinguished members of the American Humanist Association, Vonnegut having succeeded Asimov as Honorary President of that organization. In that capacity they might be seen as animated by high minded utopian ideas. However, to raise consciousness and warn humans about the mixed blessings that science and technology involved, Vonnegut, like Asimov, considered the artistic possibilities of dystopia and anti-utopia. Dealing with dystopia and anti-utopia was a preoccupation that Vonnegut and Asimov shared in their works, Player Piano and The Naked Sun being notable illustrations. The current article is the first instalment of this comparative approach to the two authors and the two novels, focusing on the dystopic automation nightmare in Vonnegut’s Player Piano.

• Details
• Contents