Showing results by author "Kurt Vonnegut" in All Categories

Available to listeners for the first time, Sucker’s Portfolio showcases a collection of seven never-before-published works from Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix.

Billy Pilgrim, amerikanischer Veteran des Zweiten Weltkriegs, überlebte 1945 den "Feuersturm" auf Dresden als Gefangener im "Schlachthof 5". Nach dem Krieg lebt er mit seiner Frau und seinen zwei Kindern in Ilium, New York. Doch dann geht sein Sohn nach Vietnam - und Pilgrim selbst wird auf überraschende Weise zum "Pilger zwischen den Zeiten". Kurt Vonnegut, Zeuge des "größten Massakers in der Geschichte Europas", verarbeitete sein Trauma in diesem Roman, der zum Kultbuch der Anti-Vietnam-Generation wurde.

"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door." A new crop of writers emerged from the dawning of the nuclear age, grappling with humankind's place in the universe. While imagining the wonders of space exploration and the rise of technological advancements, they questioned whether we were prepared to encounter aliens, or even control the machines and weapons we'd built ourselves.

Kurt Vonnegut presents in Fates Worse than Death a veritable cornucopia of his thoughts on what could perhaps best be summed up as "anti-theology", a manifesto for atheism that details Vonnegut's drift from conventional religion, even a tract evidencing belief in the divine held within each individual self--the deity within each individual person present in a universe that otherwise lacks any real order.

According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely or collapse and make another great big BANG? For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade.

Called “our finest black-humorist” by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.

The New York Times best seller from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five—a “gripping” posthumous collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s previously unpublished work on the subject of war and peace. A fitting tribute to a literary legend and a profoundly humane humorist, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of 12 previously unpublished writings. Imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor and outraged moral sense.

Als Winston Niles Rumfoord sein Raumschiff in ein chrono-synklastisches Infidibulum flog, wurde er in pure Energie verwandelt. Er wird nur dann wieder stofflich, wenn seine Energiewelle einen Planeten kreuzt – also materialisiert er sich alle 59 Tage in seiner Heimat Newport, Rhode Island, und das auch nur für eine Stunde. Aber immerhin weiß er jetzt alles über alles, was je geschehen ist und je geschehen wird.

Kolíbku, která vyšla v roce 1963, považoval Kurt Vonnegut za jeden ze svých nejlepších románů. Ironicky v něm komentuje stav Spojených států v šedesátých letech 20. století, kdy na Západě rostla obliba hippies, východního náboženství i konzumace drog, studená válka byla v plném proudu a vzrůstala vojenská podpora USA ve válce ve Vietnamu. Vonnegutův vypravěč pracuje na knize o tom, co dělali význační Američané v den svržení první atomové bomby. Pátrá i po fiktivním otci jaderné zbraně a při tom narazí na další ničivý objev - tzv. led typu 9, který mrzne při pokojové teplotě.

2 B R 0 2 B is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in the digest magazine Worlds of If Science Fiction for January 1962, and collected in Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box (1999). The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B" and references the famous phrase "to be, or not to be" from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the story, the title refers to the telephone number that one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination.

Ein Krieg bricht aus, eine Finanzkatastrophe ereilt die Menschheit – und dann wird sie auch noch von einem Virus heimgesucht, das alle Frauen unfruchtbar macht. In dieser schweren Stunde landet eine kleine, bunt zusammengewürfelte Gruppe Schiffbrüchiger mit dem Kapitän Adolf von Kleist auf einer fiktiven Galápagos-Insel. Während die übrige Menschheit ausstirbt, wird hier ein neues Menschengeschlecht mit winzigen Gehirnen begründet.

Em um futuro não muito distante, pós uma nem tão distópica Terceira Guerra Mundial, as máquinas finalmente venceram. Quase tudo foi automatizado e logo a sociedade se dividiu sob um novo sistema de estratificação não mais baseado em dinheiro, mas sim em inteligência. De acordo com seu QI e capacidade intelectual, os indivíduos são classificados e registrados em um cartão perfurado e sua posição social ― um destino de glória ou esquecimento―só pode ser definida a partir da análise desses dados.

Kurt Vonnegut’s eldest daughter, Edith, was cleaning out her mother’s attic when she stumbled upon a dusty, aged box. Inside, she discovered an unexpected treasure: more than 200 love letters written by Kurt to Jane, spanning the early years of their relationship.

Written to be sold under the pseudonym of "Mark Harvey", this 20,000-word novella was never published in Vonnegut’s lifetime. Basic Training is a bitter, profoundly disenchanted story that satirizes the military, authoritarianism, gender relationships, parenthood, and most of the assumed mid-century myths of the family. Haley Brandon, the adolescent protagonist, comes to the farm of his relative, the old crazy who insists upon being called The General, to learn to be a straight-shooting American....

From the author of such classics as Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle comes this collection of unabridged short fiction originally published in some of America's most popular magazines of the 1950s and 60s. Vonnegut himself selected his best early works for this collection, and he reads the preface and afterword to boot!

2 b r 0 2 b is a classic science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Regarded by critics and fans alike as one of the most accomplished and witty social commentators of the twentieth century, all of Kurt Vonnegut's unique strengths as a writer shine in the short fiction piece 2 b r 0 2 b.

In the not-too-distant future, 2185 AD, anti-gerisone is the new drug that stops ageing. People are now living into their hundreds until it's time to take their own big trip up yonder, and in the case of the Ford family and Gramps, the notable patriarch, families are living and fighting together in one home for much longer. Eventually there are no prisons, slums, asylums, poverty, wars, or disease. and 200 years later the population of the US is set at 40 million people. But since no one gets any older, someone must volunteer to die if a baby is born.

Kurt Vonnegut was a groundbreaking American writer, the author of such classics as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle. In a future where sickness and disease are a forgotten memory, and death itself has been cured, population control requires special consideration, and the concept of "life for life" has a new definition.

This darkly humorous short story transports listeners to an overcrowded future where anti-aging drugs have created a society where nobody dies and multiple generations are forced to cohabitate. Follow the dysfunctional Ford family as they navigate life under the iron rule of 172-year-old Gramps, whose possession of the family apartment gives him absolute power. When young Lou plots to overthrow the family hierarchy, chaos ensues.

Experience Kurt Vonnegut's gripping dystopian masterpiece, "2 B R 0 2 B," in this immersive audiobook adaptation. Set in a chilling future where population control is strictly enforced, those who wish to live must find a volunteer to die. A thought-provoking tale of sacrifice, bureaucracy, and the cost of utopia, this short story captures Vonnegut's signature dark humor and sharp social commentary.