Product Description
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) is a rare opportunity to experience Kurt Vonnegut speaking in his own voice about his own life, his views of the world, his writing, and the writing of others. An indignant, outrageous, always witty, and deeply felt collection of reviews, essays, and speeches, this work is a window not only into Vonnegut’s mind...but also into his heart.

“A great cosmic comedian and a rattler of human skeletons, an idealist disguised as a pessimist…has written a book filled with madness and truth and absurdity and self-revelation.”— St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“He is our strongest writer…the most stubbornly imaginative.”—John Irving

* The New York Times ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Not a Novel
This is not a novel but a collection of speeches and excerpts from his and other peoples writings.If you like Kurt Vonnegut, you should like this but there is not a lot of new material here.

Speedy shipping
Book arrived very quickly after ordering.The book was in good condition, although it was an older edition than the picture in the ad indicated.

The text is all the same though, and overall I was very satisfied with my purchase.

Pure Vonnegut
Hilarious, frightening, saddening, moving. I love this book and open it often, just to dip in and out, when I need some Vonnegutian insight and humor. It collects his nonfiction from 1965 through 1973, and the contents comprise one gem after another. You find KV expounding on subjects he hasn't engaged elsewhere, like murder (the Cape Cod serial killer Tony Costa), yachting ("Brief Encounters on the Inland Waterway"), and popular spiritualism (the once-notorious Madame Blavatsky). Since many of the pieces date from the late '60s and early '70s, you find him also expressing his own version of disgust and moral outrage at the various wars of attrition then being fought by America and other nations. Then there are the incisive speeches, the modest tributes to the unsung, and a classic Playboy interview. The reviewers are correct who say this collection is more for the Vonnegut fan than the casual or uninitiated reader, but once you've crossed the line from observer to fan, "Wampeters" will flesh out your experience of KV's fiction in surprising ways.

You'll Enjoy It!
Again, Kurt Vonnegut produces an excellent work of art through literature. This book, Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) is a collection of essays written by Vonnegut. It took me only a few hours to begin and finish this book while drinking coffee in front of a coffee shop on a Saturday morning. I found the book to be highly entertaining, generously humorous, and, of course, packed with blithe satire.

Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (Opinions) exists in an aura of surreality, recounting the experiences had by Vonnegut. The preface, itself, explains that the novel contains situations related to ideas that are not only abnormal but not tangible, either. The word wampeter comes from Vonnegut's book, Cat's Cradle (see my review of Cat's Cradle at http://preview.epinions.com/book-review-5DE0-39E4406-397F4030-prod6 ), and it describes any "object around which the lives of many otherwise unrelated people may revolve". This definition, alone, prompts the reader to realize that the book will involve many exemplifications of abstract ideology.

The novel contains essays describing events and satiring politics and societal figures. Vonnegut is one of the world's greatest black-humorists, and it is expected that he will try to offend quite a few persons while writing his works. Thus, Vonnegut's writing may not be for the light-hearted, and if this means you, then maybe you should not rush out to the bookstore and buy this book. However, if you dare to delve into the depths of derogatory literature, then this should be your next book. Another book I need to recommend -- completely unrelated to Vonnegut, but very much on my mind since I purchased it off Amazon is "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez, an exceptional, highly entertaining little novel I can't stop thinking about.

No foma!This will make you laugh!
The three words relate to lies, general screwups, and artificial families such as fraternities or the army, and are based on Father Kurt's creation Bokonanism from "Cat's Cradle".These essays are a look into the mind of a true original and should not be ignored.Highly recommended from one who has read every Vonnegut novel and essay he could get his hands on! ... Read more

Product Description

Over the course of Kurt Vonnegut's career as a writer, he sat down many times with radio host and interviewer Walter James Miller to conduct in-depth discussions of his work and the world. Now Caedmon has collected the best of these interviews on CD for the first time. This is the perfect audio collection for the Vonnegut fan who wants to understand the writer as he was, is, and will be.

Customer Reviews (5)

Pre-Breakfast as best I can tell...
I could be wrong (often have been) but this material is pre-breakfast. The interviewers, whatever their cred, are crap. The last (post breakfast) interview is a good one, as Kurt has a bit less patience. Vonnegut seems to be trying to draw the intelligence out of all the interviewers, but alas, he fails. Still a good period piece. Better to read his books.

Conversations with a genius
Even though his latter books seemed to be re-workings of earlier material I bought and enjoyed most every one. This series of interviews provides some insight into changes in Vonnegut over time.Each interview is fairly short and has a focus specific to the year it was taped.Some relate to specific books, others to specific events. Each interview reveals a calm and humorous Vonnegut filled with political satire.The interviewer often provides Vonnegut with insight on the relationships between Vonnegut's fictional characters and other works and events.
Worth the price.

Godd insights and historical perspective
The interviews give priceless insight into the workings of Vonnegut's mind.As I listened, I kept hoping that the interviews would never end.

Essential Vonnegut Interviews CD
It seems to me that Kurt Vonnegut's work is growing in popularity, and this CD allows us a peek at his point of view in writing some of it.

Revelation For Vonnegut Fans, Interesting for Anyone
This CD comprises 3 interviews conducted by noted author, editor, translator, NYU English professor, and Vonnegut confidant Walter James Miller. Covered here are 33 years from 1973's discussion of Slaughterhouse Five to 1981's talk about Palm Sunday and ending with 2006's Man Without A Country. Each interview runs at about 25 minutes, giving the listener approximately 74 minutes of critical analysis and conversation. This CD is a joy, providing valuable insight into Vonnegut the man and the writer.Part of an intended series, future volumes are to cover other Vonnegut novels, interviews culled from the Walter James Miller Audio Archive. ... Read more

Product Description
Never-before-collected, vintage Vonnegut.

"Vonnegut said that his last book, Timequake (1997), would be his last, but no one as imaginative and in love with language and story can resist the lure of the page, and it's obvious that he had a grand time working on this collection of his vintage stories. [Bagombo Snuff Box] resurrects Vonnegut's earliest efforts, stories written during the fifties and sixties for such popular venues as The Saturday Evening Post and Collier's. In his engagingly autobiographical introduction, Vonnegut describes his stints as a Chicago journalist and PR man for General Electric in Schenectady, New York; his decision to supplement his income by writing; and his rapid success and evolution into a full-time writer. So, here are his literary roots, a set of stories that reflects their era's eagerness to turn the horrors of war into anecdote and to equate technology with progress. Unabashedly fablelike, they can be either sly or sweet, sentimental or vaudevillian, but all are quietly subversive....Rich in low-key humor and good old-fashioned morality, Vonnegut's stories are both wily and tender." --Booklist

"You trust this voice...the pretentious are all brought to earth with his wit...These stories...speak only of simple truths." --Chicago Sun-Times

"Vonnegut's voice is one of the most original in popular American fiction." --San Francisco Chronicle

"He is a satirist with a heart, a moralist with a whoopie cushion." --Jay McInerney, The New York Times

"A word cartoonist, a wise guy, a true subversive!" --Valerie Sayers, The New York Times Book Review

"You've got to love him." --The Washington Post Book World
Never before available in book form--these early stories were only published in magazines such as Atlantic Monthly and Saturday Evening Post
Includes a wonderful autobiographical introduction, with a fascinating glimpse of his previous careers and literary beginnings.Amazon.com Review
From out of the blue, here's a new collection of Vonnegut fiction--hisfirst magazine stories from the 1950s in book form at last, with somecharming reminiscences (and three new endings for old stories) by theauthor. Vonnegut says these tales were meant to be as evanescent as lightening bugs,and that image captures their frail magic. They're like time travelers froman epoch when stories swarmed in mass-market magazines, before TV dawnedand doomed them.

Later greatness glimmers here: the offbeat sci-fi of "Thanasphere" (inwhich an astronaut encounters dead souls in space) and the hero's bogusadventures in alien lands in "Bagombo Snuff Box" look forward to Vonnegut'sSlaughterhouse Five,as do the war stories "Souvenir," "Der Arme Dolmetscher," and "The Cruiseof The Jolly Roger," which incorporate and amplify Vonnegut's actual warexperiences. There's authentic midcentury news here, even in the gentleSaturday Evening Post social satire of "The No-Talent Kid,""Ambitious Sophomore," and "The Boy Who Hated Girls," which pretty muchnail the high-school marching band experience. The pieces are peppered withodd, true observations and neat little turns of phrase: one incompetent kidin Lincoln High's band marches "flappingly, like a mother flamingopretending to be injured, luring alligators from her nest."

You can't miss the ironic humor and the humane, death-haunted melancholy ofthe young war veteran and tyro writer. This collection beats his firstnovel, Player Piano,and anticipates the masterpiece Cat's Cradle, whose tinychapters resemble short stories. Young Vonnegut is derivative, mostly ofSaki and O. Henry, partly because he couldn't think of endings, and theirswitcheroos offered a handy model. But from the start, Vonnegut'sidiosyncratic voice is unmistakable. --Tim Appelo ... Read more

Customer Reviews (31)

Early magazine work of an All- American original
Vonnegut was an all- American original. He was a man who in Thoreau's phrase truly marched to the sound of his own drummer. In these early stories he has not become fully Vonnegut but is well on the way. These stories are mostlymagazine- pieces of a kind which contain the realistic looks into life, and ironic surprises characteristic of much work of that kind and time. The work also contains Vonnegut's reflections on that time of his life, the whole business of story- writing and creative- writing which he recommends even if commercial opportunities for publication have grievously decline. One senses that in the writing of Vonnegut there is the voice and the heart of a very humane and humorous human being who is readily aware of life's incongruities, but is always somehow protesting that the world should be a lot more innocent and kinder than it is.
These stories may not be Vonnegut's finest work, but for those who know and care for his work they should be real treats.

Vonnegut
I discovered Vonnegut when I was around 12 or 13. I instantly fell in love with every single one of his books I could get my hands on. And after all these years he is still one of my favorite authors. And this book of short stories is wonderful, especially if you are really busy or have a short attention span.

Early effort
My long-time readers are aware of my predilection for the works of Mr. Vonnegut. In my online journal (The Soupletter 1993-2003) I reviewed his final novel, TIMEQUAKE, (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1997) and GOD BLESS YOU DR. KEVORKIAN, (Seven Stories Press, 1999), a collection of radio essays he wrote for New York public radio, as well as THE VONNEGUT STATEMENT, Jerome Klinkowitz & John Somer, Ed.s, (Dell, 1973), a scholarly look at the writer's career in mid-stream. Later, with Vonnegut's career winding down, I took a notion to see what I might have missed among his twenty or so book-length works and stumbled on the two I review here (which I am pretty sure completes my personal tour of his bibliography). BAGOMBO is comprised of short stories left out of WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE, the only other such collection, and by and large it is easy to see why they were left out the first time around. Vonnegut says so himself in his excellent front and back matter, essays well worth the effort of locating the book -- the reader in a hurry can profitably skip most of the rest. In fact, the author admits in his afterword that he substantially re-wrote a few of the pieces he deemed unreadable. The chief value of the stories themselves, for Vonnegut fans, lies in their historicity. Early traces of the humor, the characters, the settings and the anguish of his later brilliant work are scattered here and there as the young writer learned his trade in the late 1940s and early 50s.

Not genius, but certainly not bad...Kurt delivers
This collection of stories were written in the 1950's ..long before Kurt Vonnegut became one of our country's finest satirists or writers of black humor. The stories cover a wide range of subjects and sometimes lack the tremendous sidesplitting insight one expects when they sit down to read one of Vonnegut's novels. Therin lies a key point...these stories were written as a quick source of income to help Vonnegut be able to pay for his later novels that are so great. Having said that, the stories here which range from science fiction to domestic dilemmas are enjoyable and sometimes thought provoking stories. Some of the characters are quite memorable such as the music obsessed high school band director George M. Hemholtz who shows up in a number of the stories here. Some of the better stories here include A Present For Big Saint Nick, The No-Talent Kid, Souvenir, Lovers Anonymous, and 2BR02B but each of them offers a few little nuggets or something to make them enjoyable. Considering these stories were written so long ago, many have held up very well. This might not be CLASSIC Vonnegut, but you can pull hints of it out of Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box and if you are a die-hard Vonnegut Fan this one will be too much to pass up!

Entertaining collection of short stories
This book offers an entertaining set of Vonnegut's previously uncollected short stories, most of which were written in the 1950s and early 1960s. While the quality of the tales is not as good as those in his previously published Welcome to the Monkey House, anybody who is a fan of Vonnegut's work, or even someone who simply likes good stories, will enjoy this book.

Yet like all good fiction, Vonnegut's work is as valuable for its insights as for its ability to entertain. While the stories collected here are in a variety of genres, one theme does emerge from them - the hunger for distinction. From the title story to "The Package", "The Powder-Blue Dragon" to "Runaways," many of the stories are about people seeking something that distinguishes them from the rest of their world, usually somthing that is artificial or external to who they are. That these searches usually end in folly for the characters appears to illustrate Vonnegut's point - it is who we are as people that matters, not the trinkets we buy or the poses we adopt. Though hardly radical today, it is a point that offers an interesting contrast to the consumer-driven age that spawned such tales. ... Read more

Product Description
Short story by Vonnegut (1962):

EXCERPT:

The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.

One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.

Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.

X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.

Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.

The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die... ... Read more

Product Description
When the Creator of the universe came to Earth, It resolved to be born a male human infant, and this is what It saw when It opened Its eyes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

the best
To me this is the best book on the event of the Incarnation I have ever seen. I read it to my children, and still @ Christmas, read it to my husband and myself. It is imaginative, and has a dignity that so many modern children's books lack.

Children's book
I was kind of shocked to find out this is a children's book being that Vonnegut is a satirist. However, even thought it is a children's book I wouldn't have been so disappointed if I knew that the drawings to go with Vonnegut's story were no even drawings. Some pages are just all one colour. ex. all green then another all purple, then another all yellow. I tried to do research on this before buying it but because it is so rare I found nothing, that is why I am writing this for others.

Sun,Moon, Star, Incarnation
I read this book to my own children when they were small. Sun, Moon, Star, is an experiment which worked magnificently.There are thousands of stories and storybooks about Jesus born in a manger, and all his loved ones and visitors:in this book, the reader sees the events of that morning of Glory through the eyes of an infant Savior, seeing the world He created through eyes He created.A miracle of a small Jewish King born to see the world through our eyes, and yet never compromising the Creation he came to redeem.
Vonnegut's book is beautiful and striking in its simplicity of deep rich images, and a simple story containing the grandest meaning of all.This is a classic Christmas story told so uniquely one will return to it in memory years later, for a theological lesson so important, a child alone can grasp it.
Elizabeth K. Best PhD

Children's Story?
A book about the world as the baby Jesus saw it after his birth . . . just shapes and colours. Seems to be a child's tale at first, but no child would probably get much out of it. Just a few words, and some pictures. I wasn'tthat impressed, but the story and method of presentaion may be charmingenough for some readers. Not Vonnegut's best effort. Although, it isoriginal! I've never seen an approach even remotely close to the one takenhere.

The beauty of simplicity
A fabulously original take on the birth of Christ. The simple images serve to compliment Vonnegut's child-like prose perfectly. The depth of imagination it takes to write a compelling, joyful story about the first Christmas, through the eyes of the baby Jesus, is mind-boggling. Never has a Christmas story - or rarely a story of any kind - said so much with so little. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

An invaluable resource for studying Vonnegut
I am currently in the process of writing my thesis on Kurt Vonnegut, and this book is a fantastic resource.Vonnegut is such a candid and interesting interview subject, and this collection of interviews is marvelous to have.I've used it many times to back up my research.But even if you aren't a researcher and just a fan, it's a wonderful way to get to know Vonnegut better.I'm so glad I have my own copy of this book!

5 Stars for Vonnegut fans
As one writer on Amazon pointed out, ever since Kurt Vonnegut stopped writing novels in 1997 (or 1991, depending on whom you ask), there has been a huge hole in the literary world that can never be filled. Anyone who has ever experienced the brilliance of Vonnegut for the first time wants to immediately embark upon consuming the rest of his quite large canon. None of his books are long, and one can go through the entirety of them in a fairly short time (though they could also spend a lifetime exploring the ideas contained therein.) No doubt, anyone who has done so is joyfully grateful at having had the opportunity to enrich their lives with the humor and wisdom of Vonnegut -- but also can't help but envy the reader who is coming to the master for the first time. If you have read everything that the author ever wrote, or just about, and are looking for something to quench your appetite for Vonnegut, Conversations With Kurt Vonnegut is probably the best place to start. Authors, in general, tend to be rather reclusive and not very public figures; consequently, they often give few interviews. Vonnegut, thankfully, has not followed this trend and has given many interviews, though they started to come much less frequently after 1980. This is a great treat for both fans and scholars of the author. As an interviewee, Vonnegut is just as witty and wise, and nearly as funny, as he is in his writings. True to himself, he, as always, pulls no punches and calls things as he sees them, no matter whom it may offend (my favorite moment in the book is when he explains why Schindler's List is "sugar-coated.") It is great fun to read his interviews -- very entertaining, and a real learning experience, as well. All of the major interviews that Vonnegut has given throughout his career are included here, as well as a representative sampling of shorter pieces. Most of these will be unfamilar, and, therefore, a real treat, to even the biggest Vonnegut fan, with the exception of the monumental Playboy interview which appeared in Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons; this is a classic Vonnegut interview, however, and you will be rewarded by reading it again. The interviews are arranged in chronological order, ranging from 1969 through 1999, if you have the new edition, 1987 if you do not. Some of the best pieces included the aforementioned Playboy interview, Robert Scholes's 1974 interview, and the 1987 and 1999 interviews conducted with Vonnegut by the editor William Rodney Allen and Paul Smith, which focus on Vonnegut's more recent work. Another interesting piece is the 1974 Greg Mitchell feature written from the point of view of Kilgore Trout, Vonnegut's hapless protagonist, which re-enacts many of the scenes from Vonnegut's novels and incorporates real quotes from the author. Thankfully, Vonnegut has not been subjected to as many dumb and thoughtless interviewers as many have -- perhaps that's why he gave so many -- although, in reading through this book, one will probably become tired of hearing certain questions over and over again, e.g., "Are you a black humorist?" Most of these interviews, though, are great, several of them, particulary the Scholes and Allen/Smith interviews, take a role more akin to a real conversation than a mere interview. These are a joy to read. Vonnegut's most famous books, Cat's Cradle and, especially, Slaughterhouse-Five are covered extensively, as are such issues as his oft-forgotten play (Happy Birthday, Wanda June), his (first) insistence of never wanting to write again (in 1969!), and, a special treat for Vonnegut fans, his views on other authors and works of literature, namely Mark Twain and Joseph Heller, among others. These interviews show a different side of Vonnegut the man, and also give fascinating glimpses into his private life, including such details as his homes, everyday life, and family. An absolute must-read for Vonnegut fans!

The book wasn't well organized
The book does give great interviews and words of Vonnegut, but there is no substantial whole.It is poorly laid out, and makes no concrete assertions or comments on Vonnegut's words.

INOVATIVE
I read only the part where one person interviewed Kirk in the persona of Kilgore Trout.This made a great addition to this book.

Simply a wonderful resource for Vonnegut fans and students.
This compilation of interviews with Kurt Vonnegut covers 1969 through 1987. Vonnegut fans may recognize some of the conversations from amongst the known corpous (i.e. the Playboy interview from Foma, Wampeters, and Granfalloons) but by and large these come from quirky sources out of the main stream. The wonderfully casual Robert Scholes interview from 1973 is a delight. Also of interest is the 1974 Greg Mitchell piece written in the manner of Kilgore Trout. By all mean secure yourself a copy of this work. One flaw needs to be noted: With Vonnegut married to the skillful photographer Jill Kremetz, why put a pedestrian AP photo on the cover? Chris Huber ... Read more

Product Description
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-2007) was a prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973). He was also known for his humanist beliefs and being honorary president of the American Humanist Association.

His short work, "2 B R 0 2 B," is a genre science fiction tale originally published in the magazine "Worlds of If" in 1962. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Waste of money
I'm a big Vonegut fan, but I think this was designed to sucker us in to buying it.I could swear I read this story in some other collection.

Why is this chapter considered a book?
I love Kurt Vonnegut and this story didn't disappoint me.But paying a "book" price for what should have been a chapter in a book did upset me!Somehow I don't think Kurt would think this was a good way to make money.

Essential for Fans
"2 B R 0 2 B" is one of Kurt Vonnegut's classic early science fiction stories. Magazine publication came in 1962, but it was never reprinted; this was presumably Vonnegut's intention, but his death has opened the proverbial floodgates, and it is now available in book form. It is important to realize that this is but one short story, though quite good. The subject - population control - was one Vonnegut dealt with often, and this has all the vast imagination, black humor, and cynical misanthropy that made him great. Like nearly all his work, it is both highly emotional and very thought-provoking; it works well as a story but also has great sociopolitical relevance. One wonders why it was never reprinted, especially as it is better than most of the stories in Bagombo Snuff Box, Vonnegut's uncollected fiction collection. Perhaps he simply forgot about it. Those who believe authors' wishes should be paramount will be aghast at its publication, but fans will certainly want it. As another reviewer points out, it is available for free online at Project Gutenberg, but the dedicated will of course want a physical copy. Needless to say, neophytes will be better off with Welcome to the Monkey House, Vonnegut's main story collection, or the best-known novels, but fans will want this in some form.

Quick Read for Vonnegut fans
If you are a fan of Vonnegut's work, 2BR02B is a quick read that reminds me of an old "Outer Limits" or "Twilight Zone" episode.This short story is a small sample of Vonnegut's quick-witted cynicism in conjunction with his signature macabre comedic feel.I give the book a rating of 3 stars due to the length of the book and the fact that some of his more well known books are frankly better than this in comparison.Overall, if you want a small sample of Vonnegut's work or are a big fan that would like to add another story to your collection, order it up.

Available for free
While I understand that there is a market for this book for Vonnegut completists, it is available at Project Gutenberg for free for those who just want to read it.here is a link, if Amazon doesn't publish the link just Google Project Gutenberg and search for Vonnegut on that site, it'll come right up.

[...] ... Read more

Product Description
Parody: The Final Frontier

Now you can cruise the most hilarious sector of the space-time continuum, with this collection of twenty Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes not by the leading lights of the Western literary tradition: James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, Jackie Collins...

Steven Boyett transports you into the sort of alternative universes and avid reader or Trekker would love:

• a Clancy-like realm where the Enterprise crew mobilizes to fix Captain Picard's broken watch

• a Heller-esque domain where you can only get out of Starfleet if you're crazy--and, if you want to get out of Starfleet, you're clearly not crazy

• a Collins-ish netherworld where Counselor Demanda Troi sleeps and shops her way around the galaxy

• a Melvillean place where Moby Trek lies in wait

...and many more.

Boldly go where no one has gone before with this stellar combination of high art and high comedy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (23)

Great parody!
One of the funniest books I've read lately. It helps if you have read the books/authors being parodied, but each take-off was fun even without prior reading. Best bets if you don't want to read them all: Moby Trek and Trek of Darkness. Great stuff! In Retrospect

Great parodys of various authors - a lot of fun!
This book was a great deal of fun, as it created ST:tNG stories that parodied various well-known authors.Now, keep in mind that someone who is not conversant with ST:tNG will probably have a hard time finding the humour in these stories, as the book relies on the premise that those reading it will be fans on the show.Additionally, if a reader is not familiar with some of the authors, some of the jokes will fall a little flat.However, with those concessions out of the way, I loved this book - I laughed my way through it in about 2 1/2 hours time.Some of my favorite "episodes" were: "A Clockwork Data," which is filled with the same sort of crazy verbiage that can be found in "A Clockwork Orange;" "Less Than Data," which is very funny in many different ways; "Lady Fed" is raunchy but fun; "The Vampire le Forge" of course had me rolling with laughter - not only did it parody the writing of the original, but it made fun of the writing of the original story in a very clever way; "Even Androids get the Blues" did a terrific job of playing with English, just like Tom Robbins does - it really captured the essence of Robbins' style; "Q Clearance" makes fun of the way very simple matters can escape people who are full of themselves; finally, "Moby Trek (abridged)" had to be the funniest of the bunch, as the abridgement notes make fun of the over-wrought style of the original (very similar to "The Vampire le Forge").

That said, there were a couple that were difficult to catch all the jokes (likely because I haven't read the original stories): "Trek 22" left me scratching my head - it's so full of double-speak and multiple negatives in the same sentence that I realized I really needed to read "Catch-22" so I can grasp the humour more."A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Fan" was likewise pretty dense - again, I suppose you need to have read the original story to really catch the humour here.

There are several more stories in this text, and all of them have their moments of humour.I definitely recommend this for any fan of the show - you won't be sorry you took the time to find this text.

trekbaby
This will be the funniest StarTrek book you'll ever read! I bought one the year it came out at DragonCon, read the entire book there and hurt myself laughing. Since then I've purchased several copies to give to friends and they feel it is hilarious as well! Keep on Trekin'

Cute idea...not that great in execution
The author, Mr. Boyett, definitely has his literary background down pat. He's managed to capture the look but not the soul of each of the writers that he portrays. But the book is banal, the stories aren't very good. They're like one trick ponies, one joke stories that go on for too long.

The Star Trek elements will have the inner geek in you smiling but that's about the limit.

BTW, the only story in the book that I kind of liked was the Anne Rice Parody, the Vampire LeForge.That was pretty funny.

Pleasant romp from Boyett. At last something new from him.
Some folks have bashed this confection because they were unfamiliar with the authors and stories parodied here. Shame. What you haven't read is your own problem, and the literati chosen for this series of parodies comes from a high school reading list. In other wrods, Boyett chose carefully to make the collection of parodies accessible to the kind of people who like to read and who actually finished their Sr. High reading lists.
So, why buy this? Well, you only need to get it if you totally dig Star Trek AND you totally dig good literature. Those two things are pre-requisite. Of course, you can trump them both if you are just a fan of Steven R. Boyett, as am I. What he accomplishes here is cool and fun, and hopefully it will whet you appetite for things more cool, more fun, and far more compelling in his novels *Ariel* and *The Architect of Sleep.* ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

WHICH three novels, goldurn it?!
Since Amazon doesn't give any useful info on contents here, let's fill in the blanks. The 3 novels collected are:
Cat's Cradle, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater, and Breakfast of Champions. They're all great reads, and at these prices, you really can't go wrong. ... Read more

Product Description
From back cover: "Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. has written one of the major novels of the year... Haunting... Irresistible Reading... Poignant and Hilarious threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement... work of art" (Boston Globe) "Splendid art and simplicity... Nerve-racking control... a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears, a tale told in a slaughterhouse" (Life Magazine) "With Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., ... takes center stage as one of America's most important writers." (The Publishers) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Pleased
Just as described. Ordered and to the house within the week. Awesome. Just in time for school assignment. Thanks.

The Hobo Philosopher
I have a very good friend. He is an intellectual and an alcoholic. My dad was an alcoholic but not an intellectual. I drink myself and have had a good many in depth discussions with many a drunken barroom philosopher.

My old pal, the intellectual, and I have spent numerous evenings discussing "life, love, the here-and-now and the forever after" over a jug of wine or scotch and a big plate of ham and cheese. Oftentimes my old buddy would turn on the tape recorder and record our meanderings. In the days afterward, he would listen to them over and over - even without a bottle of scotch by his side.

One day I asked him why in the name of heaven he was recording all our drunken babbling. He said, "Some day I am going to put it all together and publish it as a Kurt Vonnegut novel."

Reading Slaughter-house Five has been my first experience with Kurt Vonnegut and I must say my old buddy has a pretty good idea.

Kurt admits to being a drinker in this book and calling friends on the phone late in the evening ... and babbling. I know nothing more about Kurt and his life than what I have read in this one short volume. But this book does remind me of many a bar-stool conversation that I have had in my lifetime.

I sit down at my stool and the fellow next to me, Kurt Vonnegut, begins to expound. He smiles, laughs often and sucks me into his monologue. He begins light and airy but with a humorous gravity. A few minutes into his spontaneous dissertation, he lowers his head to the bar and goes to sleep.

Ten minutes later, the bartender slaps his hand on the bar and Kurt wakes up. He immediately starts talking about his days as a prisoner of war in World War II. He talks for about five minutes and then his head collapses to the bar once again. When he awakes this time he has just been kidnapped by Martians. He talks about this experience for a moment or two but then slips off into the fog once again.

Life goes on ... "and so it goes" until Kurt pops up again. This time he talks of his pal who didn't make it back from the war and somehow we slip into his wife and her current cancer treatments and then we go back to the slaughter-house where he and a few buddies were being held as prisoners during the bombing in Dresden, Germany in World War II.

The next time he wakes up we are into his oldest son and the fist fight they had when the boy turned 22 and then we are off and into his third wife and her bouts with depression.

Kurt wanders in and out of consciousness. He makes you laugh, he chocks you up and he changes the topic as soon as he thinks he could be losing you. His story has no beginning, middle or end. It is a feel-as-you-go type thing - spontaneous, quick-witted, personal, witty and emotional. And, like Mark Twain, he challenges the reader to find a plot. But yet you find yourself very entertained. And when you get up from your stool, you toss a few bucks onto the bar and tell the bartender to give Kurt a drink or two on you ... when he wakes up again. "You know," you comment to the bartender before leaving, "every barroom needs a guy like this. You got to keep this guy around." The bartender laughs.

Kurt admits that he did not want to write about this subject and for much of the book he doesn't. It reads as if he wrote it with a bottle of scotch or bourbon by his typewriter. As the bottle empties the monologue becomes more intense, more emotional and more dramatic.

The trick here is like with Mark Twain himself. Mark Twain was a "rambler" but he was also a serious writer. His rambling were planned and thought out and agonized over. I believe Kurt is of the same character.

Contrary to intended appearances, he's not babbling and he is not drunk. He is writing, composing, creating. He is capturing his reader with variety and inventiveness. He has created a character of himself. He is definitely a "different" type writer. He has a style and a personality and it shows. He's good.

Cheers Kurt. The stool next to me is always open.

I will be reading more of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. I have a big stack of his books out in my poor man's library in a shed in my backyard. Poor Kurt has been sitting out there by himself for a number of years. I will have to join him more often in my future; I'll bring a bottle of something special along.

Books written by Richard Noble - The Hobo Philosopher:
"Hobo-ing America: A Workingman's Tour of the U.S.A.."
"A Summer with Charlie" Salisbury Beach, Lawrence YMCA
"A Little Something: Poetry and Prose
"Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother" Novel - Lawrence, Ma.
"The Eastpointer" Selections from award winning column.
"Noble Notes on Famous Folks" Humor - satire - facts.
"America on Strike" American Labor - History

"Bugs in Amber"

Vonnegut's Novel Noir, which revolves around the devastating effects of the 1945 bombardment of Dresden, depicts the disturbed mental existence of Billy Pilgrim---a pathetic anti-hero with whom we soon sympathize.Readers are jerked through multiple time warps in each chapter of these 215 pages of stream-of-consciousness memories.To further compound literary comprehension portions of chapters one and ten are related by a first-person narrator whose goal is to comment on Billy's story.In short: his fluctuating inner life deposits him without warning into pieces of temporal amber, trapping him like a bug, where he is helpless to return to the present. The choice of the protagonist's name is indicative of his plight: BILLY implies not a fully grown man but an impotent youth; PILGRIM hints at his psychological journeys in search of sanity--or even his attempts to escape it.

Requiring some literary flexibility on the part of readers this story is engaging; we see Billy in a variety of ages and settings (not the least bit chronological). Flashbacks are not sufficient; the author includes flash forwards as well.No wonder poor Billy is often confused.We see him as a baby, a boy, a fiancé, then a rich optometrist, a devoted husband, and a wretched chaplain's assistant during WW2.The poor fellow permits himself to be acted upon, rather than commit himself to deliberate action, which results in needless suffering for him--not to mention the dismayed concern of his adult offspring.Meekly accepting of his fate and the prolonged unfairness of life, he calmly allows the world to consider him a crackpot by insisting that he was abducted by aliens and displayed in a an Earthling cage on a planet called Tralfamadore.
Besides spoofing the sci fi craze of the 1960's the author indulges in two private agendas: to educate the American public about the atrocity of Dresden and to titillate the masses with countless examples of lewd language and crass behavior. He assumes that intelligent Americans will revel in his indulgence of low morality and crudity--cleverly passed off as literature.We must wade through a morass of filth (of all kinds) in order to empathize with the trials of a naïve innocent like Billy, whose pilgrim journey of self-discovery and human acceptance may never be fully achieved.An interesting read for those who can separate the trash from the kernels of human truth.

... Read more

Product Description
Drawn on his own World War II experiences, Slaughterhouse-Five is a commentary on the stupidity of war.

The title, Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics.This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Kurt Vonnegut, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

So it goes
Slaughterhouse 5, or Slaughterhouse five, or The Children's Crusade, also called A Duty-Dance with Death, is described by the author Kurt Vonnegut's alter-ego, Billy Pilgrim as a `fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod [and smoking too much], who, as an American Infantry Scout Hors De Combat, As a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tell. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace.' So it goes.

The book is an anti-war book, but tells us that it is about as useful being an anti-war book, as being an anti-typhoon book, meaning that some things will never change. Vonnegut tells us this by giving us the story of Billy Pilgrim, whose most important role in life was to witness the secret American British bombing of Dresden, where 135,000 died, and who spent most of his time as an American Prisoner of War, a survivor who can tell the youth of today what war is all about, by using his shellshock trauma induced time travel capabilities, given to him by the Tralfamadore aliens, to revisit the war, so that he can write a book about it, goes to see old war buddies, becoming unstuck in time, his life as a series of scenes in a non-linear fashion which ends up making linear sense, even though it did not at the time. So it goes.

Slaughterhouse 5 is a very interesting and somewhat touching series of events that finally all come home to roost in the final pages, the loss of man is the gain of man, whether we like it or not, is not the point, Darwin told us that this is what we are designed to do, Billy Pilgrim becomes an optometrist in the process, marries a woman who suddenly has a series problem, while Bill ends up in a zoo on an alien planet to produce children with Montana Wildhack, a famous movie actress, while trying to write his Dresdon story, filled with death, a plane accident where he was the only survivor following his POW term, fact from fiction, he thinks the rescue party are nazis, it sets off the time travel again. So it goes.

Vonnegut is not all down and war depressing however. His humour captured brilliantly by such antics as considering the money tree that grew hundred dollar bills, gems and bank bonds, feeding off the people who met the quicksand by its base, or a young Jesus who once built a cross with his father so the Romans could use it to do something to a protestor that they didn't like. When the wit is there it scores in aces. You have never read the likes of such clowning around before, although compared to Joseph Heller's Catch 22, this one is more personal, less satirical, more direct and exposes that horrible World War II bombing of Dresden. In 1941 Charles Portal, A British Air Staff officer, put forward the idea that entire cities and towns should be bombed. Air Marshall Arthur Harris agreed in February 1942. It was napalmed in 1945. Vonnegut made it very public in this 1969 novel. It was revealed by the historian David Irving in 1963 in his publication, "The Destruction of Dresdon". So it goes.

Billy spends the final days of his life out across New York looking to tell a radio show his story, ends up finding a world war II sci-fi book author's book as window dressing, attempts to buy the book as a memory keepsake because he met the author and knew the war buddy who introduced him to the books, and is nearly arrested, and or committed, old age coupled with the dying man's last bastion of whatever his mind can make of it all, gives us much to ponder in death, by remembering our lives, Pilgrim travels in his memory and says that death is living ones memories over and over again... so best be good... and enjoy life. So it goes. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (8)

A portrait of Vonnegut the writer among friends
In Slaughterhouse-Five, Vonnegut described that as an Anthropology student at the University of Chicago he was taught "nobody was ridiculous or bad or disgusting. Shortly before my father died, he said to me, 'You know -- you never wrote a story with a villain in it.' It is appropriate that in Lorre Rackstraw's book on Vonnegut there are also no villains just a number of people trying to make their way as writers and other artists in this world.

The book focuses on the creative milieu that Vonnegut worked in during his teaching at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and his life in Massachusetts and New York. From it we have some idea of Vonnegut's relationships with Rackstraw, his two wives Jane Vonnegut and Jill Krementz, his children and his family. More interesting, to me at least, was the book's reminiscences of Vonnegut's relationships with other writers and artists like Andre Dubus, Paul Engle, Joseph Heller, John Irving, Richard Yates and others. I think Rackstraw does as excellent job describing the group dynamic of the authors that Vonnegut befriended and admired and the book gives a great sense of them as a whole. Even though her discussion of her own relationship is at times constrained, she does provide some insight into the development of his creative works. It is a tribute to her that Vonnegut trusted her review and opinions of them.

This is not a biography and not a definitive work on Vonnegut but future historians and biographers are greatly in her debt.

Don't Pay More Than $5 For This Book
As a Vonnegut fan who was looking for a little more background on the man, I couldn't help but pick this up (for about $7 from an Amazon seller).I got what I paid for.

This book is not great.It will not put Vonnegut's writings in a whole new light or give you a more profound understanding of the man or his works.What it does is provide 200+ pages of mostly interesting personal background to what was going on in his life at the time he was writing many of his greatest works.The book is generally well-written, and despite the criticism from other reviewers, this is not a tell all of some affair he had or a personal story of the author.

The book provides background, context to some of the personal issues that may have driven Vonnegut's writing.If you can pick it up for a few bucks, it is well worth the read.

Tales of a Desperate Hanger-On
This book is subtitled "Vonnegut as I Knew Him," but I think a better choice would be "Tales of a Desperate Hanger-On." Loree Rackstraw is determined to make herself seem like one of THE most important people in Kurt Vonnegut's life. At one point, she actually goes so far as to claim she was one of the first two people (ever) to recognize the author's true genius. She includes plenty of excerpts from their correspondence, all of which coincidentally seem to be about how talented and brilliant she is, and how much Vonnegut loves and admires her.

It seemed like I was rolling my eyes at every other page with statements such as "My contribution was a consciously subtle expression of gratitude and affection for [Vonnegut's] invention of harmless untruths that helped us all endure."

I got about halfway through this book before giving up, which was being really generous. I like to think that Vonnegut, who seems never to have taken himself too seriously, would have found this book cringeworthy at best.

If you are a Vonnegut fan looking for insights into this brilliant author's character, I recommend looking elsewhere. Loree Rackstraw's ego trip is a sad attempt to profit from Kurt Vonnegut's memory.

Rackstraw's love letter to Kurt
For me, the best parts of this book occur in the first couple of chapters where we get a glimpse of a struggling, unknown Vonnegut teaching and writing at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in the mid-sixties.Very little information about Vonnegut's life before Slaughterhouse Five is available, and the first couple of chapters provide some insight.But Racksaw works close to the vest when it comes to details about any kind of sexual affair, only hinting most of the time.And she focuses much more on the mood and feel of the Workshop community than the actualy day to day classes and what Vonnegut was like as a teacher.She gives us glimpses, but that's about all.

The rest of the book conicles Vonnegut's rise to fame up and continuing struggles with depression and writing until his death in 2007, mostly through Rackstraw's memories and correspondence with Vonnegut.She keeps Vonnegut in the forefront at all times and never tries to grab the spotlight, which is a good thing.

But I wouldn't call this a very fair and balanced portrayal.Kurt is all good in her eyes, never writing a bad book, never giving a bad speech, never drawing a bad picture.I imagine Vonnegut, prone to mood swings and depression, was probably pretty hard to get along with at times.And yes, he wrote a few bad books too.

Still, until a definitive Vonnegut biography comes out, something like this is a nice look inside the life of one of American literature's most popular figures.

Another view of a great artist
I have read Kurt Vonnegut over the years and re-read most of his novels after his death in 2007.It is great to have the backgrounds of some of these books and to see another side of him.

I didn't know about this lady and I don't care to read the intimate details of their relationship.She tosses out enough hints where I can use my imagination and that is how it should be.I am approximately her age and understand where she is coming from.Most of us brought up in Iowa when she was (I was too) learned to keep private things private.

I recommend this book to any Vonnegut fans who want to read how it all was done.I am now on a quest to find copies of the speeches, articles and essays she mentioned! ... Read more

Product Description
This title has fewer than 24 printed text pages. The Big Trip Up Yonder is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Kurt Vonnegut is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Kurt Vonnegut then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Why is this a separate book?
I love Kurt Vonnegut and this story didn't disappoint me.But paying a "book" price for what should have been a chapter in a book did upset me!Somehow I don't think Kurt would think this was a good way to make money.

No need to buy separately
This story is available in the Collection Welcome to the Monkey House and in its nearly identical predecessor Canary in a Cathouse. A very good story indeed: a parable about the social downside of immortality. The quintessential Vonnegut story. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

In my opinion this is Vonnegut's best
I first read this book in high school when my English teacher recommended it. After completing it, I then went to the library and sequentially checked out and read all of the other books they had by Vonnegut. Fundamentally, it is an anti-war book based on the Allied firebombing of the German city of Dresden. The city had no real military or strategic value and was swollen with refugees; the goal of the allies was simply to kill as many German citizens as possible.
Billy Pilgrim is a man caught in a cycle of situations involving the war and his value as a museum piece for the Tralfmadorians with the focus passing from one to another in an abrupt manner. Vonnegut was a master at this, creating his unique brand of satire of so many things, although at times it helps to know a bit of history if you are to truly appreciate it.
All lovers of literature with a social message lament the passing of Vonnegut, all of us wishing that he had written more so that we could enjoy more. In my opinion, this is his best work and will always remain a masterpiece. It is my hope that English teachers will forever recommend his books. Praise goes to you Miss Locke!

Kurt Vonnegreat!
This is one of the best books in my world. The vintage copy makes me feel fancy. ... Read more

Product Description

In what began as a series of quirkily characteristic ninety-second interludes for New York's public radio station, Kurt Vonnegut asks, on behalf of us all, the Big Questions. Could death be a quality? A place? Not an ending but an occurrence that changes those to whom it happens?

As a "reporter on the afterlife," Vonnegut bravely allows himself to be strapped to a gurney by his friend Jack Kevorkian and dispatched round-trip to the Pearly Gates. Or at least that's what he claims in the introduction to these thirty-odd comic and irreverent "interviews" with the likes of William Shakespeare, Adolf Hitler, and Clarence Darrow, bringing readers to an entirely new place -- a place to which only Vonnegut could bring us. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (56)

And God Bless You, Kurt Vonnegut
As a teenager growing up in the 1970's, Kurt Vonnegut was one of my favorite writers.Slaughterhouse Five left a lasting impression on me, as did Breakfast of Champions."So it goes" and Vonnegut's sketches will be forever imprinted in memory.Thirty years later I picked up God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian and was reminded why this author struck such a strong chord with me - irreverent social commentary, sharp wit, idolized figures knocked off their pedestal, cultural analysis, irony - all these are here again in, I suppose, one of Vonnegut's final works (I would need to research that but I'm not bothering).

Here, Vonnegut turns a series of "after-life" interviews he conducted for National Public Radio into a book.Number one irony - Kevorkian keeps "killing" Vonnegut and bringing him back to life to report on his interviews of famous and not so famous people, including the likes of Hitler.Each vignette is rich with Vonnegut's style and it leaves the reader with some belief to reconsider or an insight about accepted traditions or interpretations of historical figures and events.And as always, Vonnegut provides a good number of thoughtful laughs.

Thin-sliced baloney
Vonnegut was a good guy, and a very funny one at times. It is hard to quarrel with his basic position as a 'Humanist' in advocating simple human decency, good citizenship. In these very brief sketches which were originally broadcast on WYNC radio he imagines himself with one foot in the Pearly Gates speaking to those who have already arrived there. Not a bad gimmick and it does lead to some occasionally funny stuff. But it also leads to a bit of moral misjudgment. For instance Vonnegut speaks to arguably the worst person humanity has ever had. And he while rebuking him for killing thirty- five million people wholly ignores the dimension of total Evil in the Nazi character. Vonnegut is often better speaking to the 'non- famous' than to the famous. He does have a real sense of the 'ordinary' person and the kind of life- wisdom he might attain. Vonnegut of course debunks, and this his original premise any notion of afterlife of world- to- come. He says he brought the house down when at his friend Isaac Asimov's funeral he addressed him ' up there in Heaven'.
But some of us do not think of the world- to - come as a joke, but rather as a hope, dream even need.
And while as a religous person I was willing to have my belief mockedI would have appreciated it much better had the mocking been done with greater weight and interest.

Very Short, But Entertaining
If you have never read Vonnegut, I suggest starting here. This ia a fine novel with a unique premise. Each chapter the author is killed and brought back to life so he can interview souls on the other side, both famous and ordinary. The insights brought back are well worth the trip. The major flaw in this book is the fact that it is only 77 pages (paperback). With a cast of characters that could span all of human history, there was so much more that could have been done.


T

Not What I Was Expecting
This was a different read than other Vonnegut screeds. Although I find the vast majority of his writing a rambling wreck, and his novels violating his own ten written rules for writing fiction, this collection of vignettes of fictional near-death transpositions was entertaining for the most part. It's hard to believe, as the book jacket states, that this was the best of his shorts (can't call the essays, since they are not). I would have thought that there should have been a lot more of them, at least for the cover price. However, I borrowed this from the library as I don't consider his work up to my personal library considerations. In fact, this copy was donated by a lady who didn't want it in hers and still had her personal library stamp in it!

Excellent!
Short and sweet. This book is classic Vonnegut. Originally a collection of radio shorts for WNYC, Vonnegut turns his unmatched wit on the afterlife and moral living. Highly recommended. ... Read more