The Story Archive

Player Piano

Kurt Vonnegut · 1952 CE · Novel · Modern / American · Contemporary

In an Ilium run by machines that do every job better than people did, the manager of the works is the most promising young engineer in the country and is beginning to suspect the arrangement is monstrous. Across the river the men whose work the machines took drink and wait, while a visiting Shah keeps asking whose slaves these are. Vonnegut wrote it in public relations at General Electric, and said he had cheerfully ripped off the plot of Brave New World.

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Lineage

Attributes

Genre
Science FictionSatirePolitical
Theme
Individual vs SocietyFreedom vs FatePower & CorruptionNature vs Civilization
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
EverymanRebel / OutlawRuler / King
Plot structure
Rise and FallIronic Reversal
Symbol / motif
The MachineThe CityThe Game / Cards
Conflict
vs Technologyvs Society
Mode / tone
SatiricalIronicRealist
Culture / tradition
Modern / American

Closest analogues