Rating: 
Summary: Vonnegut is THE short story writer!
Review: I'm generally not the biggest Vonnegut fanatic, but when I saw this at a book sale for a mere twenty-five cents, I snatched it up as quickly as I could. Often fate leads me to my favorite books, (as opposed to recommendations), and this is certainly true here. Vonnegut is THE short story writer!As a novelist, I appriciate his uniqueness, but his short stories take his brilliance and compact it into ten pages -- prepare yourself for some of the most thought-provoking 352 pages around. His stories can be reread, this book can be read cover to back, and Vonnegut can be appreciated in even greater depth by the devout fan and Vonnegut novice alike. He's books and his subtle messages are wonderful, but somehow he short stories spoke to me. He is just a man full of ideas. _Welcome to the Monkey House_ had me licking my lips to this scrumptious bunch of stories, and wanting more.
Rating: 
Summary: I disagree
Review: I have been reading Mother Night today, and so I got up to review Welcome to the Monkey House, a book I read no less than five years ago. Dimly, I recall this as my least favorite Vonnegut book. I understand today that this is because Vonnegut is a master of short stories, but the longer they become the more they can be appreciated. He never leaves his genre. You can pick up a chapter of any book he's written and it tells a story, beginning to end. What is particular to Vonnegut is how he attaches one segment to the next, and all segments into a book. Welcome to the Monkey House (and likely in other collections, such as Bagombo Snuff Box, which I have not read) is a book that brings together Vonnegut stories with no intended connection. They are interesting, but they aren't fantastic. It just isn't as fun.
Rating:
Summary: He writes science fiction, with a dash of harsh reality.
Review: Myself, I've never read any Vonnegut in the past. As a matter of fact, I have not read many books at all before. This collection of short stories is just perfect for someone like me. The stories vary from about five pages to twenty pages apiece, making them easy for anyone to ascertain in a short amount of time. After getting about half-way through the book I decided to go out and purchase SLAUGHTER-HOUSE-FIVE, SIREN OF THE TITANS, and GODBLESS YOU DR.KEVORKIAN. That is what is so beautiful about this book, the fact that someone who never reads, can easily peruse a story or two with out missing a beat. Kurt will capture your attention in every tale.
Vonnegut came way before my time, but now I see what all the recognition was about. His ideas on government and modern society were way ahead of his time. His notions of peace, shifty politicians, and clandestine activities are what make him an excellent addition to any radical library. He writes science fiction, with a dash of harsh reality. These ideals, of an overpopulated world in which every aspect of our lives are governed, are presented with extraordinary detail in Vonnegut's writing. Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Harrison Bergeron, and Welcome to the Monkey House (The story) are lurid representations of the way the future could be. This book has it all romance, tragedy, and triumph. Every story is not just science fiction, as you may imagine. Most of the stories are set in the past and have no portrayals of an automated society or a talking dog that helped to invent electricity. In fact, one of my favorite stories, The Foster Portfolio, is one that contains no special effects at all. Like many of Vonnegut's other stories, The Foster Portfolio just deals with simple human characteristics like pride, ambition, and happiness. The presentation that Kurt puts into his characters is marvelous. When you get done reading one of his stories you'll feel as though you know the characters.
Rating:
Summary: An amazing collection of short stories
Review: Having never read Vonnegut before, I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. The title led me to expect some degree of science fiction. What I found was a collection of rich, wonderfully written stories about a wide assortment of subjects. Vonnegut is a great writer, pure and simple. Many of the stories dealt with the future and the state of society, and Vonnegut struck me as having a somewhat cynical yet witty view of the subject. I found the themes of his stories to be somewhat akin to my own fears of life as we will some day know it, in a world where the government attempts to create utopia on earth. Two of the more memorable stories found in these pages are "Harrison Bergeron" and "Welcome to the Monkey House." In the first story, we find the type of society that I fear the most, a socialist republic where all people are required to be equal; those who possess intelligence and pose the danger of actually thinking are controlled by implants which forcefully disallow any thought from entering their minds. In the latter, we find a Malthusian world of overpopulation where everyone takes pills to numb the lower halves of their bodies and people are encouraged to come to Federal Ethical Suicide Parlors and voluntarily remove themselves from the crowded world. Other stories deal with massive overpopulation troubles. On the other hand, we find more simplistic stories in which Vonnegut conveys individuals in a deep, touching light, striking great chords of sympathy in this reader's mind. A woman who is obsessed with redecorating the houses of her neighbors yet cannot afford to buy decent furniture for her own house; a young woman who comes to a strange town, captivates everyone with her beauty, is criticized and publicly humiliated by a young man for being the kind of girl he could never win the heart of, and is richly shown to be an innocent, lonely soul; a teen who acts horribly because he has never had a real family but is saved from a life of crime by a teacher who makes the grand effort to save the boy--these are some of the many subjects dealt with by the author. There is even a heartfelt story about a young Russian and young American who are killed in space but who inspire understanding and détente between the two superpowers by bringing home the point that they were both young men with families who loved them and who had no desire for anything but peace--written during the height of the Cold War, that story really stood out to me. All of the stories are not eminently satisfying to me, but the lion's share of them are; a couple of stories seemed to have been written for no other reason but to make the author some money, which is okay (especially since Vonnegut introduces the stories by saying he wrote them in order to finance his novel-writing endeavors). I may have been less than satisfied by a couple of stories, but even the worst of the lot was written wonderfully and obviously with much care, and I daresay that few writers could do better on their best day than Vonnegut does on his worst. Sometimes, as one ages, one fears that he will eventually have read all of the best books in the world, but then one discovers an author such as Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and it is one of the best and most exciting things that can happen to that person.
Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut's Short stories surpass his novels
Review: If you like Vonnegut this collection of short stories is a must. This is the only book of short stories that I have ever read cover to cover. This is the only book I reread almost on a yearly basis. I have give this book as a gift often to people suprise they say that it is Vonneguts best work. Unlike other short story writers, Vonnegut short stories different from one another and do not repeat the same boaring gimmics over and over. "All the Kings Men" is about an insane game of Chess "Eipac" is about a computer who becomes more than a computer. "Who will I be today" is about two people who fall in love by not being themselves. "DP" is about a half black / half German orphan who stumbles on a unit of american GI's during WWII "Slow walk into tomarrow" is about an AWOL soldier who goes takes a walk with only woman that he could ever lovethe day before she is to marry another man. (THIS IS THE BEST) There are about ten more each unique as Vonnegut.
Rating: 
Summary: If You Have Read Everything Else Vonnegut Has Written...
Review: Having just finished Welcome to the Monkey House, I must admit that I prefer Vonnegut's lengthier works. I know this may make me a grand candidate for a good stoning, as Mr. K is reputed to be one of the best short story writers around, but this one just didn't do it for me like Slaughterhouse or Hocus Pocus or even Slapstick. Don't get me wrong, these stories are good, they just aren't any better than other famous and well read sci-fi short fiction writers like Asimov or Bradbury.
I think, oddly enough, the constriction of the medium has to do with some of the similarities I see between these stories and, say, the works of Ray Bradbury (who came to mind a number of times while reading this work). While Vonnegut's novels are sprawling and conversational with enough room for a doodle or two, these small pieces are forced into a beginning, middle and end format that doesn't play as well with his style.
I have devoured a number of Vonnegut works in a day or so, and sometimes I have read a them back to back, but Monkey House took me almost two weeks to read. I stalled out a few times, sometimes after two pages of a new story, and put the book down to finish it later. I ended up reading a story a day for the last week, just so I could finish without getting burned out.
Like I said before, these stories aren't bad, they just seem to be standard for both their age and their genre when Vonnegut tends to be anything other than standard on every other occasion. I wasn't terribly disappointed, but I will stick to the novels from now on.
Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut Pulls Through Again with Monkey House
Review: Kurt Vonnegut has a very unique writing style. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is not your regular book. This is a collection of short stories. All of them are classic Vonnegut. They include humor, and off the wall plots. A lot of the stories remind me of Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury).
Some of the stories are set in the future, others in the past. They are all captivating and encourage imagination. A lot of Vonnegut stories have a lesson to them if you look hard enough. This book's short stories definitely show some of the lessons he tries to teach. If you have never read a Vonnegut book this would be a great one to start with. Because the stories are not very long, if you lose interest you can easily move on a different story. The actual story, "Welcome to the Monkey House" is great. Vonnegut shows us how warped our world could be. Many of the stories are like that. Vonnegut continues to show us new possibilities in the realm we live in. None of his stories are so outlandish that they could never happen. He always includes enough reality to never make it impossible. What he does include makes us take a look at what we really want to allow the government to control and what could happen. Only Kurt Vonnegut could make a story that is about "ethical suicide." I loved it!!!! You will love this book, it is wild, it is crazy, and it is totally VONNEGUT.
Rating:
Summary: A must for Vonnegut fans
Review: Like most writers who got their start before or shortly after WWII, Kurt Vonnegut began his writing career as a short story writer. Consequently, this collection includes some of his very earliest work, as well as several truly classic short stories that rank among the best of the second half of the 20th century. As one would expect from a collection housing many stories from a writer in his infancy, the collection is not consistently stellar: some pieces are unquestionably wonderful; others are of lesser quality, and at least one -- Where I Live -- is pointless. Vonnegut himself is quick to point out that this is not his best work: in the introduction he states that the stories were written to finance the writing of his novels. Indeed, as with many beginning writers, they constituted his very livelihood; writing them was often a matter of necessity, and not always necessarily the calling of artistic craft. Don't expect the Vonnegut that you're familar with from the novels. Several of these stories hit a moral note, as Vonnegut inevitably does, while others are attempts to strike an emotional chord. Vonnegut, at his short-story-writing best, was a master of what some of the greatest practitioners of the art -- Edgar Allen Poe, among others -- have cited as the key element of any short story: evoking one specific feeling, emotion, or tone. Vonnegut achieves this in many of the stories contained herein, and uses far less humor in doing so than we are accustomed to from him. Some of the best stories include the title story, which lays out a highly provocative and imaginative future scenario; Harrison Bergeron, a truly classic story that really strikes a moral chord; Tommorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, a bleak, darkly funny satirical piece; All The King's Horses, a highly suspenseful and dramatic rendering; Unready To Wear, a thoughtful slice of science fiction; Report On The Barnhouse Effect, Vonnegut's first published story and a science fiction classic; and The Manned Missles, an emotional shocker. Many of these stories are science fiction, a genre under which a lot of Vonnegut's early work fell. Science fiction, at that time, was not even considered a real literary genre, and many literary elitists disparage Vonnegut for having mined it. The author himself has also distanced himself from the field in intervening years, due to the bad press it got him, which has caused a rift between Vonnegut and the science fiction community. Let it be said by me, then, a long-time reader of science fiction, that Vonnegut wrote very well in the genre, and that most of his best short stories were, indeed, SF. Though he never purveyed the so-called "hard" science fiction, full of complex technicalities, that made writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov famous, Vonnegut was continually full of great ideas that were well-suited the genre. I wish he had written more SF stories. Overall, quite a good collection of short fiction, certainly far superior to the more recent Bagombo Snuff Box -- do not avoid reading this book if you weren't a big fan of that one -- though it does not rank among the best of Vonnegut's work. I recommend it highly to fans of the author or enthusiasts of the short story art form.
Rating:
Summary: optimistic stuff
Review: this collection of vonnegut is probably better than any novel of his that i have read. because, while his novels are wonderful this colletion of short stories makes you proud to be a person. i feel this collection of his works is very positive and, in contrast to his other, later works has very little negative social commentary. and hearing positive things is something very nice in a world full of so many negative things to talk about.
Rating:
Summary: Vonnegut also writes excellent short stories
Review: True, some of his earliest works were in this book, but it's just as essential to Vonnegut's catalogue than one of his acclaimed novels like Slaughterhouse-Five and Bluebeard. Most of the stories in here kept me very interested and a lot of them had very brilliant storylines. Essential reading.
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