Science Fiction: The Short Stuff discussion

Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s 2 B R 0 2 B is a short story that originally appeared in the January 1962 issue of If.



I think everyone who graduated from high school probably knows who our author is. He is famous for producing literary fiction, but was no snob. He touched on genre fiction quite a bit in many of his fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction works over fifty-plus years. Further works have been published since his death. This short story was written just ten years into that career.

According to Wikipedia: "The story explores themes of overpopulation, government control, and the value of human life, showcasing Vonnegut’s characteristic blend of dark humor and social commentary. The setting is a society in which aging has been cured, individuals have indefinite lifespans, and population control is used to limit the population of the United States to forty million, a number which is maintained through a combination of infanticide and government-assisted suicide." Join in on reading and commenting your impressions on it this fine October, won’t you? It’s available On Kindle for free, as well as at Gutenber.org. Paperbacks of 24 pages length are even available from Amazon starting at $2.99.

I think everyone who graduated from high schoo..."
I got super into Vonnegut, maybe in the early '80's, and read nearly all his books. I recently read this one: A Man Without a Country. I highly recommend it. He wrote it during the GW Bush administration and was so incredibly incensed with what he was witnessing. It could very well have been written during Trump's... It's a quick read.

Dan wrote: "Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s 2 B R 0 2 B is a short story that originally appeared in the January 1962 issue of If.



I think everyone who graduated from high schoo..."

Well... maybe we graduated from high school elsewhere, where the focus was more on other/local writers.

Vonnegut was my own discovery later in life. I never really got into his stuff, but I did happen to read this short story.

But yes, I get the point—sorry, couldn't help but comment on that sentence. There are people from all over the world on Goodreads...

Watership Down and Great Expectations were assigned reading for me in high school as well even though I lived in Illinois rather than England. Wouldn't focusing only on New Zealand authors lead to a rather parochial education? I mean, Ngaio Marsh is a wonderful author, I grant. And most people find more value in Katherine Mansfield's writing than I've managed to. Still, I can't recall ever reading another NZ author and could not name one without doing some research. My point is that Vonnegut is (or more likely was) not assigned reading in U.S. high schools because he was a local writer. He was considered an important writer at one time--universally important. Maybe he still is.

I started with this story. I found it easiest to simply pull up the magazine it originally appeared in (https://www.luminist.org/archives/SF/...), the January 1962 issue, and read it there.

I enjoyed reading the 7-page story, but did not find it to be particularly deep or clever. Typical Vonnegut. Here's my review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I've just read the story-it's okay. I've read lots of Vonnegut so this really doesn't stand out among his longer works.
I'm glad I finally read it.