I mostly agreed with his ratings when I saw that in PALM SUNDAY all those years ago, though think he was too hard on the stories in MONKEY HOUSE. Certainly BREAKFAST and SLAPSTICK were pretty poor. My favorite of his sf novels is THE SIRENS OF TITAN, my favorite of his contemporary mimetic (or recent historical) novels is BLUEBEARD, but he hit similar highs rather frequently.
Vonnegut was pretty honest about his work, it seems to me. Slaughterhouse-5 is clearly a masterpiece. In many ways, the book that affected me most was Mother Night...what a chilling ending. And I love Cat's Cradle. Much of the later work was OK, but not special. Welcome to the Monkey House is also great, especially "Report on the Barnhouse Effect."
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SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE is considered Vonnegut's best book. But I really like CAT'S CRADLE and MOTHER NIGHT.
I mostly agreed with his ratings when I saw that in PALM SUNDAY all those years ago, though think he was too hard on the stories in MONKEY HOUSE. Certainly BREAKFAST and SLAPSTICK were pretty poor. My favorite of his sf novels is THE SIRENS OF TITAN, my favorite of his contemporary mimetic (or recent historical) novels is BLUEBEARD, but he hit similar highs rather frequently.
I like most of the stories in MONKEY HOUSE, too, Todd. Don't much care for the two you mentioned as being poor.
Vonnegut was pretty honest about his work, it seems to me. Slaughterhouse-5 is clearly a masterpiece. In many ways, the book that affected me most was Mother Night...what a chilling ending. And I love Cat's Cradle. Much of the later work was OK, but not special. Welcome to the Monkey House is also great, especially "Report on the Barnhouse Effect."
The ending of MOTHER NIGHT has stuck with me for well over 40 years.
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