I always find it very hard to write about collections of short stories. And for Vonnegut, I am finding it even harder---it has been more than two weeks since I finished this book that I am writing this down. Many of the stories in this collection were written prior to most of my favorite Vonnegut novels: Mother Night, Slaughterhouse 5 and Galapagos. As such, I can see many of the themes of those works in these stories: the future of the human race, sci-fi more generally, the meaning of life and human relationships.
I have spent some time thinking and can't identify a favorite. Two of them, though, made my skin crawl---always a worthy attribute in a short story. Those are: "All the King's Horses" and "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow". "All the King's Horses" flashed me back to "Heart of Darkness" and "The Most Dangerous Game", but with a marginally happier ending. (On a side note: it is interesting that these types of human sacrifice stories stand out more as short stories than as novels. Maybe they are better---and creepier---if there is less said about them.) The skin crawling aspect in this one was based on the lack of free will of the individuals and the Captain's forced god-like power over them.
"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" has a similar theme of a lack of free will, but feels more possible. This one reminded me of My Petition for More Space, though with less order (bureaucracy?) and the bad side of Sax's quote which I included when writing up Blue Mars. It is a question, though, we will have to contend with as our life spans get longer. While I hope the solution is expand skyward, the cynic in my gut tells me we may be headed to something more like Vonnegut's future. That gives me the heeby-jeebies.
In general, these are all excellent stories. These leave a different feeling on your skin than a Ray Bradbury story, despite the similarities. With Bradbury, the extrapolation point seems too far out. Though Bradbury still captures the Twilight Zone feeling, Vonnegut is more visceral: that extrapolated point is very close, giving a tighter feel to my skin when I finish reading.
9/10
