I found this to be a great read - a brilliantly written piece of work that captures your imagination.
The main character, Billy Pilgrim, is a man who becomes "unstuck in time", literally drifting to and from different points in a line that describes his life. A weak and odd character, he is considered a ridiculous figure by almost everyone he meets. The plot centres around his experiences as an American prisoner of war in World War II, and the bombing of the town of Dresden in 1945.
The author writes this novel from his own experiences of the war: he himself was a POW in Dresden when the bombs hit. Indeed, he even features in the plot, adding a sense of authenticity to the grim descriptions of the emotions and conditions soldiers went through.
Billy is described as having seen his own death and birth, and the events in between, numerous times. He sees his highly successful but mundane life as a rich optometrist in his home town after the war, the plane crash of which he was one of 2 survivors, as well as his old age, where his daughter considers him to be senile. Also described is the time where he was abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore, 4-dimensional creatures who explain to Billy the way time works. Every moment exists, has existed, and will continue to exist somewhere. The Tralfamadorians see all of their existence, and everyones existence, and travel around it to view the better moments. Billy learns that death is merely a part of one's life, that a person still exists somewhere in time, which is why the aliens have a peculiar saying when someone dies: "So it goes."
Hoping I haven't spoilt it [there's a lot more to it] already, I'll just add that the author use sharp wit to expose the true horrors that war can cause. It's simply great.
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