Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
published 1963 - read 2004

A goofily apocalyptic saga told by a dispassionate narrator prone to delightful tangents - fairly typical Vonnegut, but that's not a bad thing.  Some of his most famous ideas are here, including one that became the name for a Castlevania boss!  For Vonnegut it seems like the world may end a hundred times and it will absolutely always be with a whimper - people are just too clumsy and disorganized to muster a satisfying bang.  One complaint: the spareness of detail is a legitimate stylistic choice (and obviously the author's preferred mode) but at times it's frustrating.  The saga of ice-nine and its creators could have had much more impact if developed with a little more of a creepy flair and less of a sense of deadening inevitability.  Or would that have blown the whole point?

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