In Deadeye Dick, Kurt Vonnegut continues to voice his now familiar concern with modern technology gone out of control. For example, a mantelpiece which no one knows is radioactive, kills one of the characters, and, worse, a neutron bomb goes off over the center of the action, Midland City (another of Vonnegut's narrative substitutes for Indianapolis, his childhood home). Vonnegut also continues to investigate the role of the artist in society by making his main character a failed playwright who is more noted for accidentally shooting someone than for his literary efforts.