Just as Vonnegut mixes history and fantasy in Slaughterhouse-Five, he also combines new material with characters and references to his earlier fiction in the book. The fictional city of Ilium is the setting for Player Piano; the Tralfamadorians are the central focus of The Sirens of Titan; Howard Campbell is the protagonist of Mother Night; and Eliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout return from God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
The apocalyptic nature of Slaughterhouse-Five is echoed in many of Vonnegut’s other works. In Mother Night Howard Campbell defends the Holocaust; in Cat’s Cradle the Earth is destroyed by a substance called “ice-nine”; in Deadeye Dick the citizens of Midland City are inadvertently killed by a neutron bomb; and in Galapagos the narrative takes place in the distant future, long after humankind has been wiped out by a virus.
The film version of Slaughterhouse-Five, with a screenplay by Stephen Geller, was directed by George Roy Hill and starred Valerie Perrine, Michael Sacks, and Ron Leibman. The film was released by Universal Pictures in 1972 and won a special jury prize at the 1972 Cannes Film Festival.
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