Rapid-Fire Book Reports For 25 Vonnegut Short Stories
Science-fiction authors don't get to feel like rock stars very often. Aside from the Comic-Con panels and rare moments of being recognized on the street, there are hardly any Beatles-on-Ed-Sullivan moments. You stay at home, ponder the wonderment of being, write books about time travel, and once every few years you get a big fat check.
But the middle of the 20th century was a different time. Gods like Vonnegut, Bradbury and Ellison were slashing out short stories and just throwing them up there like Kanye's Good Friday tapes. And they were getting PAID. Magazines and periodicals (remember them?) paid good money for short-form content from big-name authors. The best part was that after a few years, you could just slap them all together like a best-of album and get paid for them a second time- and do absolutely zero work in the process.
This week, the Kurt Vonneguys take a look at Vonnegut's second short-story mixtape, Welcome to the Monkey House. They pore through all 25 of the stories and consider the collection as a complete work--do all the stories work together? Did Kurt put them in the right order? Could he have cut the amount of stories in half and by doing so, made the best short story collection ever? Throw on some headphones and check it out on this week's Kurt Vonneguys.
Sections
Super Short Story Plot Time! (06:15)
Recurring Characters Update! (01:54:30)
Kurt Cameo! (01:55:55)
VonneWHAAAT! (01:57:00)
Kurt Blurt! (02:05:30)
Vonnegrades! (02:11:00)
Related Reading! (02:12:45)
Vonnegut News! (02:21:00)
Related Reading
Book: Marc Leeds: The Vonnegut Encyclopedia
Book: Ray Bradbury: The Illustrated Man
Book: George Saunders: CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
Book: Charles Yu: Sorry Please Thank You
Book: Eric Puchner: Music Through the Floor
Short Story: Harlan Ellison: "The End of the Time of Leinard" (in Dream Corridor)
Short Story: Harlan Ellison: "How's the Night Life on Cissalda?" (in Shatterday)
