In particular, it features the quest undertaken by several characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device, the Schwarzgerät ('black device'), which is slated to be installed in a rocket with the serial number '00000'.
The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military. Gravity's Rainbow is a 1973 novel by American writer Thomas Pynchon.
