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3.55 AVERAGE
3.55 AVERAGE
This book fulfills requirement #8~ Science Fiction set in space for the 2015 eclectic reader challenge.
I will be generous and say that it gets 1.5 stars. I struggled quite a bit to finish this one. First, I was highly disappointed that it wasn't by Kurt Vonnegut (Kilgore Trout is one of Vonnegut's characters, so I was hoping it would be one of his stories since Kilgore Trout is the name on the book). Then I started reading it and the insane amount of sex turned me off. I don't generally read a lot of sci-fi, so the technical stuff, though tough to read, didn't bother me too much. The book did improve somewhat toward the end, but by then the experience had already been ruined for me. This book was totally not my cup of tea... and I was disappointed in the ending, so for me there was no payoff for finishing it.
I will be generous and say that it gets 1.5 stars. I struggled quite a bit to finish this one. First, I was highly disappointed that it wasn't by Kurt Vonnegut (Kilgore Trout is one of Vonnegut's characters, so I was hoping it would be one of his stories since Kilgore Trout is the name on the book). Then I started reading it and the insane amount of sex turned me off. I don't generally read a lot of sci-fi, so the technical stuff, though tough to read, didn't bother me too much. The book did improve somewhat toward the end, but by then the experience had already been ruined for me. This book was totally not my cup of tea... and I was disappointed in the ending, so for me there was no payoff for finishing it.
What did I think? I don't even know.
A copy of this was given to me by my Junior year English teacher after doing a presentation on Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, just the fact that one of Kilgore Trout's books was actually released was astonishing to me. Here is a man, more or less, who has written dozens, if not hundreds of various novels and stories over a sordid career that spans decades, and this is the one they saw fit to release in this universe?
Well, I can't really complain about it, with it being fairly good and all.
It's pulp, the pulpiest of pulp imaginable at times, with Simon Wagstaff taking up the mantle of unlikely hero despite being the only human among the stars with an owl, a dog, and a robot companion he stumbled upon after fleeing a planet that has since named him "Simon the Sodomite." The whole thing is a fantastic bit of meta fun, never once meant to be taken seriously in any context, except perhaps a theory stating that the first animal to evolve on a given planet will become the dominant species--utterly mind altering, isn't it? There are prison sentences that last hundreds of years for simply landing on a planet's surface, sex with an alien cat-queen for an immortality elixir, and that said elixir gives all of the person's ancestors a say in their mind, constantly prattling on and on for as long as they shall live, which, I think, is forever.
I love that it's so unabashedly silly, that it seems like it would be something Trout would write, that everyone on the cover is half-naked. It's a piece of literary candy, a handful of gummy bears in text that do nothing more but give a bit of pleasure for a quick read.
A copy of this was given to me by my Junior year English teacher after doing a presentation on Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut, just the fact that one of Kilgore Trout's books was actually released was astonishing to me. Here is a man, more or less, who has written dozens, if not hundreds of various novels and stories over a sordid career that spans decades, and this is the one they saw fit to release in this universe?
Well, I can't really complain about it, with it being fairly good and all.
It's pulp, the pulpiest of pulp imaginable at times, with Simon Wagstaff taking up the mantle of unlikely hero despite being the only human among the stars with an owl, a dog, and a robot companion he stumbled upon after fleeing a planet that has since named him "Simon the Sodomite." The whole thing is a fantastic bit of meta fun, never once meant to be taken seriously in any context, except perhaps a theory stating that the first animal to evolve on a given planet will become the dominant species--utterly mind altering, isn't it? There are prison sentences that last hundreds of years for simply landing on a planet's surface, sex with an alien cat-queen for an immortality elixir, and that said elixir gives all of the person's ancestors a say in their mind, constantly prattling on and on for as long as they shall live, which, I think, is forever.
I love that it's so unabashedly silly, that it seems like it would be something Trout would write, that everyone on the cover is half-naked. It's a piece of literary candy, a handful of gummy bears in text that do nothing more but give a bit of pleasure for a quick read.