Slaughterhouse Five is arguably Kurt Vonnegut’s most famous novel. The first chapter is essentially a preface by the author talking about the genesis of the novel. Where many books and stories have been told about Pearl Harbor or D-Day or Hiroshima, less has been written about the firebombing of Dresden. Vonnegut had been a prison of war and kept in an underground slaughterhouse in Dresden during WWII. For this book, he has given Billy Pilgrim his WWII history and a science fiction future. It’s a book about war and life. “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.”

Billy Pilgrim is a chaplain’s assistant who is captured by Germans and kept in an unused slaughterhouse (Slaughterhouse Five). Because of their location underground, the guards and prisoners of Slaughterhouse Five survive the bombing of Dresden. For Billy, this is a horrific situation and it causes Billy to be unstuck in time. He knows where and when he will die. He knows that he will be taken by Tralfamadorians, display in a zoo and forced to mate with a porn star. He knows that a person who hated him during WWII will lead to his death. He knows and he knows he can’t change it.

Regular Vonnegut characters Kilgore Trout and Eliot Rosewater pop up in the story. Vonnegut’s black comedy is mixed with aliens, time travel and war to create an amazing story. It’s a slim volume of only a couple hundred pages, but the emotional impact is amazing. The opening chapter follows the author as he looks up old war buddies and details his reasons for writing the novel. This introduction adds to the emotional impact of the story since you know the war events were, for the most part, real and that adds to the horror.

Vonnegut is an amazing writer who isn’t often associated with science fiction. But he uses time travel and aliens in a wonderful manner to create a great story. Billy Pilgrim’s catch phrase “so it goes” does a great job of summing up the main themes of the story. It’s a powerful story, one which isn’t easily pigeonholed into science fiction or any other genre. The story is one the must be read. Highly recommended.