This was a fun little thing to read. It's a compilation of some of Vonnegut's works and I think it's done well. The pictures make me think it was a fun thing to make.

i liked the little guy in the corner of the pages

mm i just found an old copy of this at the bookstore which is cool.. not sure if this is vonnegut canon as he only helped write it - but it did make me miss reading him, and i enjoyed seeing the adaptation of some of his famous characters into this tv screenplay format.

Incredibly funny read that loosely links into one narrative (i.e., script for a public television dramatic special) ideas and characters from his more famous stories. Simply put: I laughed out loud reading this at my local coffee house, with other patrons looking at me inquisitively. I thought about ideas long after I put the book down. Throughout, it reminded me of how much I love everything Vonnegut, and how important he has been to my worldview. I was thrilled when I found a used copy of this rarity, and it will sit on my shelf among my most prized books.

This is the script of a TV production based on bits and pieces of Vonnegut's work, including 'Harrison Bergeron', 'Cat's Cradle' and others, with some input from Vonnegut, who also provides an introduction. The book contains many black and white stills taken by Jill Krementz (Vonnegut's wife). It's an interesting curio rather than a satisfying read, and it only took me about an hour to get through the whole thing. The original TV production can be found on Youtube.

For those who’ve worked their way through Kurt’s fourteen novels, five short story collections, four non-fiction collections and assorted insubstantial curios, your last act of barrel-scraping lies with his short-lived career as a playwright. Happy Birthday, Wanda June is your other option (or perhaps you’ve done that already? top of the class!) and sadly, in addition to an old novella from the 40s Basic Training, someone has released his COLLEGE NEWSPAPER work as an e-book in an act of madness (although no trace of this exists on the Devil’s Marketplace in the UK, sigh of relief). This teleplay was released in hardcover at the height of Kurt’s popularity, so is clearly a bibliography bolsterer, but not without its merits. The teleplay appears to be an imaginative reprise of some of the best SF concepts and messages from his short stories and novels, notably Cat’s Cradle and ‘Harrison Bergeron,’ interrupted by stills from the show (and photos by Jill Krementz) to create a not entirely unsuccessful textual-TV hybrid. Given the book takes less than an hour to complete, it’s an inoffensive experiment, and at least the designers attempted something original rather than simply reproducing the play. Beats reading another volume of unpublished bottom-drawer fiction, says this shameless completist.

Perfect book for me. Puts two things I love - Vonnegut and television - together. Fun story.

The weirdest most delightful little taste of Vonnegut. Been too long.

I love this book. I think everyone is wrong. To understand it, is to remember its a historical artefact. A rare jem, that lets you know how others saw Vonnegut books as he was writing them. Not the reviewers, his contempories. How much it meant to them. How they tried to make their idea of Vonnegut concrete. How they suceeded. How they failed.

Venus on a Halfshell is not going to be declared as some literary masterpiece. Nor is this. Though I wouldn't rid the world of either.

It reminds me of looking at early photos of Frank Lloyd Wright's streamlined buildings. You have this wonderful architecture that transcends the time it was built and in front of the garage is a funny looking hobbly Model T Ford.

This might have made for an interesting program back when it aired in 1973. I don't think it translates very well into a book (or at least, it wasn't adapted sufficiently to make it work as a book). The photos from the tv version don't add anything - you can't simply transcribe a tv program and throw some stills up on the pages and call it a book. It's still Vonnegut, so there's enough here to get you thinking and some funny and memorable lines, so it was worth the quick read as a completist. Ultimately fine but unnecessary.

I enjoyed this very much - although it moves quickly and is a super quick read; it's quirky - and I like quirky.

It's not really worth 3* as a book - it might have been great as a TV play but I never saw it - but it is Kurt Vonnegut. Sort of. He didn't write it, as such. Some TV people plucked out a few gems from his books and tossed them together in a script and gave it to some actors. It's very possible that it worked on the screen but it wasn't much of a reading experience. Still, Vonnegut gave it his OK, so - OK