"All this happened, more of less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true... I've changed all the names..." The destruction of Dresden by bombs and a fire storm was a catastrophe that Vonnegut himself witnessed as a prisoner of war and forms the basis of this, perhaps his most powerful novel. Billy Pilgrim's liberating insights into the tragic realities of human history are the result of his release from the prison of time and, as a result, he sees the past, present and future as one.