From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
A pioneering astronaut hears voices in outer space. Kurt Vonnegut reflects on mortality and the Cold War. Read by Kerry Shale.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jqzb

Again, Kurt Vonnegut has proven his short-story prowess. Not every tale here is a winner, but there were enough to justify the read. I'd be interested to discuss the compilation with others who have read it, to compare which ones stuck with folks. Personally, I'm still contemplating Powder Blue Dragon, Lover's Anonymous, The Runaways, and of course 2BR02B (which I'm sure I read elsewhere first).

This is a collection of short stories Vonnegut wrote when he was just getting started. They were originally published in mass market magazines—not literary journals. As Vonnegut explains in his commentary, he had no clue what he was doing (spoiler, he did), and these magazines provided training ground—that paid; something that no longer exists.

The stories are uniformly entertaining, and you can see precursors of some of his much more developed characters and plots he later used for his novels. Albeit, he does admit some of these stories were heavily edited for this edition, so they don’t really provide a good idea of the quality of his writing in his early years.

I listened to the downloadable audio version. The reading is great, but this was made directly from cassettes. They could have removed a bunch of “this story is continued on the other side” messages!!!

If you a Vonnegut fan, I recommend it. If you are not, this is not the place to start!

Even though I wasn't a fan of most of these stories, it's certainly not put me off from reading other Vonnegut books. My personal stand-outs were Powder Blue Dragon and the title story.

E aproape obositor să tot constat câți scriitori foarte buni au avut și încă au nord-americanii. Probabil, cea mai mare literatură a lumii.

These are very early short stories, that Vonnegut himself cringed at when they were resurrected. They were meant to be published once in a sea of other authors' short stories, and then never see the light of day again. Vonnegut didn't even have his own copies of them anymore.

That said, I thought they were OK for 1940s/1950s short fiction. Now I'm not a huge Vonnegut fan. If you are, you might be disappointed in his early work. For myself, I thought it was worth getting out of the library.

For Kurt Vonnegut, I did not care for these stories. I know he got his start in science fiction, but maybe it’s my reluctance to love short stories?

I love everything Papa Kurt has written, but this just didn’t do it for me. I’m really disappointed about it.

Ok so they aren’t the best short stories ever written, Vonnegut himself admits that and even had to heavily edit some. But when he was writing these, to paraphrase the great man, he was writing to make his soul grow. There are gems still, gleaming from the rough, filled with deep thoughts and tongue in cheek humour, just as one might expect. And it is occasionally amazing how much he can develop characters over 10-15 pages. It’s rarely vital or life changing stuff but if you enjoy KV you will likely find something of worth.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is één van de vele auteurs die mijn studentenjaren in de jaren '70 gekleurd hebben. Nadien ben ik die auteurs uit het oog verloren om andere horizonten te verkennen, vooral die van de filosofie en de wetenschappen. Nu herontdek ik met plezier hun latere werk.
De verhalen uit deze bundel werden geschreven tussen 1950 en 1963 en gepubliceerd in tijdschriften. Ze behandelen vooral de gevoelens van en de relaties tussen mensen, ouders en hun kinderen, in het naoorlogse Amerika... het wel, maar vooral het wee en de holle leegte van het materialisme, de Amerikaanse droom. Heel veel van wat Vonnegut toen al zag en onderkende in die "levensstijl" is vandaag de dag nog zeer actueel.
Ook al is het moeilijk om sterren/een evaluatie toe te kennen aan een bundel waarin verhalen geschreven over een tijdspanne van vele jaren samengebracht zijn, aarzel ik toch niet Bagombo Snuff Box de hoogste waardering te geven.

There’s something about Vonnegut’s writings about Midwestern America, manufacturing towns, and specifically Indianapolis that feel really right. I never get tired of it.

The short stories definitely sound like young Vonnegut, and don’t have quite the punch of some of his classics. But good nonetheless.

This is another Vonnegut short story collection. My guess is that these are the Welcome to the Monkey House rejects. There are a couple of good stories (Thanosphere, 2BR02B) and a few that are decent, but most of them are just "meh".

This is a collection of short stories that are all kind of... well... boring except for one, which is absolutely incredible. That story is called 2BRO2B. This story is a crazy futuristic dystopian society that turns out so creepy it rocks! You could probably find this story without buying the whole book. It would be worth your time to skip the others. They are okay, but nothing special.