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2BR02B: science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut
Embark on a thought-provoking journey into a future where immortality comes at a science fiction short story by Kurt Enter the imaginative world of Kurt Vonnegut with "2BR02B," a thought-provoking science fiction short story. Vonnegut's narrative challenges societal norms and explores themes of life, death, and the consequences of extreme population control. This gripping tale leaves readers contemplating the value of existence.
13 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 1968
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About the author
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
710 books37k followersKurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.
After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.
His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.
Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,447 reviews
January 25, 2025
I missed Kurt Vonnegut.
I am my father's book adviser and while he was waiting for me to finish The Man in the High Castle I recommended The Cat Cradle to him, with the disclaimer that it is a bit strange and he might not like it. In case you were wondering, I needn't have worried as he sent me a message two minutes ago (great timing) to tell me he finished it and loved it very, very much.
While talking to my father about Cat Cradle I got the sudden urge to open the first Vonnegut book I could find and start reading. As I have too many books on my to read shelf, I settled for a compromise, 2BR02B. It is a very short story, 15 min max to read, but it packs a punch, as I was expecting. It might be a good way for people to get a sense of Vonnegut's style.
I am my father's book adviser and while he was waiting for me to finish The Man in the High Castle I recommended The Cat Cradle to him, with the disclaimer that it is a bit strange and he might not like it. In case you were wondering, I needn't have worried as he sent me a message two minutes ago (great timing) to tell me he finished it and loved it very, very much.
While talking to my father about Cat Cradle I got the sudden urge to open the first Vonnegut book I could find and start reading. As I have too many books on my to read shelf, I settled for a compromise, 2BR02B. It is a very short story, 15 min max to read, but it packs a punch, as I was expecting. It might be a good way for people to get a sense of Vonnegut's style.
February 11, 2018
2BRO2B: Where utopia and dystopia coalesce.
May 6, 2015
Rather mundane story of a future where population balance is all - for every child born, one person has to die, now that anything but voluntary mortality is a thing of the past. In my view, the reality of such a situation would be that there would always be a contentious third world and there would always be aggressive young men and there will always be an arms industry and small wars will be encouraged.
I do see that medical cures and ways of extending life, perhaps more or less indefinitely, might be developed, but I don't see how you are going to breed pacificsm and generosity into people. Nor do I see that aggression and avarice will decline, let alone die. Religion alone will see to that. Come to think of it, what happens to heaven and hell when there is immortality and eternal sin will go unpunished.
Utopia, like dystopia, is for writers, they exist, like heaven and hell in the imagination. Reality is the unchanging nature of people. I don't see that as being influenced to change completely by any technology that might be developed.
Perhaps when it was written, this was cutting-edge dystopian sci-fi, but now it has no lustre, there is nothing in it that stands out as unique to this story. I can't rate a book on 'how it was back then' only on how much enjoyment I got from it now. Three and a half stars because it was as well-written as one expects of the doomy-gloomy Vonnegut but that's it.
I do see that medical cures and ways of extending life, perhaps more or less indefinitely, might be developed, but I don't see how you are going to breed pacificsm and generosity into people. Nor do I see that aggression and avarice will decline, let alone die. Religion alone will see to that. Come to think of it, what happens to heaven and hell when there is immortality and eternal sin will go unpunished.
Utopia, like dystopia, is for writers, they exist, like heaven and hell in the imagination. Reality is the unchanging nature of people. I don't see that as being influenced to change completely by any technology that might be developed.
Perhaps when it was written, this was cutting-edge dystopian sci-fi, but now it has no lustre, there is nothing in it that stands out as unique to this story. I can't rate a book on 'how it was back then' only on how much enjoyment I got from it now. Three and a half stars because it was as well-written as one expects of the doomy-gloomy Vonnegut but that's it.
December 4, 2012
So, I...uh...had a deal with spenke I was supposed to be knifing open the satsuma plum of my Vonnegut chastity belt with Breakfast of Champions. But, you know, patience hasn't been coded into my DNA, let alone cultivated as one of my virtues (sic).
In 1999, Kurt Vonnegut was asked to write an an epitaph for the 20th century. His response?
"I have written it: The good Earth — we could have saved it, but we were too damn cheap and lazy."
2 B R 0 2 B (RIP Shakespeare) is a flash fiction he wrote in 1962. Back in the good ol' days of closed, equilibrium state systems, Friedman economics, white male supremacy and the little lady at home, burgeoning consumerism as the slipslide into "utopia", and "Duck and Cover" as your friendly neighbourhood mantra in the event of a nuclear warhead coming to a cinema near you.
Vonnegut extrapolated into a future and you know, he wasn't too far wrong. It's not so much his vision that was imperfect, as the fact that physics had yet to pronounce to all and sundry that although the status quo is infinite and everywhere, like wave-particle duality when seen from the perspective of the observer it doesn't behave independently or even with necessary predictability. So what we have sixty years after Vonnegut's peek into our future is ineffective population control in the face of population growth, rather than the demand = supply steady state scenario of his story, and a continuation of resource appropriation enforced via an oligopoly of corporation-states, as opposed to the euphoric prosperity for all that is the corollary of that steady state.
"Everything was perfectly swell.
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age.
Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers."
That's the opening scene. But Vonnegut doesn't go for the global perspective, he bats the ball straight into middle class suburbia and takes out a father obliged to choose which one of his three new born offspring will survive, since only his own father has offered to partake of euthanasia in order to maintain the balanced equation.
This is witnessed by the artist who is painting a garden mural - think Hieronymus Bosch' Garden of Earthly Delights and the ambiguity of what Bosch intended with his triptych - to be populated by the likenesses of the medical staff responsible for delivering life and simultaneously extinguishing it. The painter, two hundred years old, displays a callousness that indicates his contempt not just for the society in which he lives, but for the society which will follow him should he choose to commit suicide: "...express[ing] with an obscenity his lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors."
In the aftermath of the means the father uses to resolve his state-imposed moral and emotional quandary, the painter "...ponder[s] the mournful puzzle of life demanding to be born and...fruitful...to multiply and to live as long as possible...on a very small planet that would have to last forever. All the answers...were grim." He reneges on his professed disdain and schedules himself to be euthanised, and is thus eulogised by the terminating staff: "Your city thanks you; your country thanks you; your planet thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all is from future generations."
It's not something we can expect from ours, given that we've been too damn insular and apathetic.
January 1, 2024
Oops. I read this one a couple days ago and forgot to review it. It's dark, well-written, very … Vonnegut. Kind of like a futuristic, extremely messed up episode of Grey's Anatomy, except that no one's getting busy in an on-call room.
February 1, 2018
Only Kurt Vonnegut, or a very good facsimile could come up with the Federal Bureau of Termination.
That is a treasured institution in 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut, his scathing satire on population control. Humans are living to be fantastically healthy and long lived, and enjoying life on a rich, bountiful … and roomy Earth thanks to some extreme measures.
A fun read, but like most of Vonnegut’s work, one that leaves the reader thinking.
That is a treasured institution in 2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut, his scathing satire on population control. Humans are living to be fantastically healthy and long lived, and enjoying life on a rich, bountiful … and roomy Earth thanks to some extreme measures.
A fun read, but like most of Vonnegut’s work, one that leaves the reader thinking.
February 20, 2025
A chilling yet darkly satirical glimpse into a dystopian future where population control is strictly enforced, no one is born unless someone volunteers to die.
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
My first question is, how did we conquer old age? To quote Dr. Malcom from Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
In classic Vonnegut fashion, the story blends absurdity with sharp social critique.
Instantly reminded me of these two stories:
The Unit
The Giver
Thought provoking and unsettling.
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
My first question is, how did we conquer old age? To quote Dr. Malcom from Jurassic Park, “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
In classic Vonnegut fashion, the story blends absurdity with sharp social critique.
Instantly reminded me of these two stories:
The Unit
The Giver
Thought provoking and unsettling.
June 19, 2019
A brutally effective allegory.
December 18, 2021
To be or naught to be.
Relato distópico acerca del control de la población. Muy corto, muy bien escrito y muy interesante.
Relato distópico acerca del control de la población. Muy corto, muy bien escrito y muy interesante.
January 11, 2017
A dark humor short story that offers some thinking about a utopia.
February 12, 2023
Distopia o utopia? Questo è il problema
In un mondo perfetto, dove non esistono guerre ne carestie, dove nessuno soffre e nessuno muore,cosa ci si aspetta di più?
Beh, non la pensa così un papà che deve scegliere quale dei suoi 3 bambini appena nati dovrà vivere, quale vita dovrà dare in cambio per far sì che almeno uno dei suoi figlia possa vivere nel "paradiso".
Una vita in cambio di una vita, solo così si può far parte della popolazione di oggi.
Un breve racconto che fa riflettere, che ti mette davanti anche al concetto di felicità.
Per porre fine alla propria esistenza basta comporre un numero 2br02b che, se ci fai caso corrisponde a......arrivateci voi
"Se non ti piacciono i miei baci, dolcezza, Ecco cosa farò:
Andrò a vedere una ragazza vestita di viola, Darò un bacio a questo triste mondo, addio!
Se non vuoi il mio amore, Perché sprecare tutto questo spazio?
Me ne andrò via da questo vecchio pianeta,
e lascerò che un piccolo dolce bambino prenda il mio posto."
In un mondo perfetto, dove non esistono guerre ne carestie, dove nessuno soffre e nessuno muore,cosa ci si aspetta di più?
Beh, non la pensa così un papà che deve scegliere quale dei suoi 3 bambini appena nati dovrà vivere, quale vita dovrà dare in cambio per far sì che almeno uno dei suoi figlia possa vivere nel "paradiso".
Una vita in cambio di una vita, solo così si può far parte della popolazione di oggi.
Un breve racconto che fa riflettere, che ti mette davanti anche al concetto di felicità.
Per porre fine alla propria esistenza basta comporre un numero 2br02b che, se ci fai caso corrisponde a......arrivateci voi
"Se non ti piacciono i miei baci, dolcezza, Ecco cosa farò:
Andrò a vedere una ragazza vestita di viola, Darò un bacio a questo triste mondo, addio!
Se non vuoi il mio amore, Perché sprecare tutto questo spazio?
Me ne andrò via da questo vecchio pianeta,
e lascerò che un piccolo dolce bambino prenda il mio posto."
January 10, 2017
I've never been a big fan of Vonnegut, though I've tried. I had mixed feelings about this one, as well.
In a near future, the Earth's overpopulation problem has been solved by strict laws. Aging has been "cured" and people can live youthfully indefinitely - but the necessary corollary is that births must be limited. Voluntary euthanasia is encouraged.
In his trademark darkly humorous style, Vonnegut portrays this situation as grotesque and inhumane. I actually disagree, so I couldn't really wholeheartedly embrace the story.
In a near future, the Earth's overpopulation problem has been solved by strict laws. Aging has been "cured" and people can live youthfully indefinitely - but the necessary corollary is that births must be limited. Voluntary euthanasia is encouraged.
In his trademark darkly humorous style, Vonnegut portrays this situation as grotesque and inhumane. I actually disagree, so I couldn't really wholeheartedly embrace the story.
September 28, 2016
In Vonnegut's fictional future they have found a cure for aging. So naturally the government has to institute a program called "population control". Will never happen you say. Maybe not finding a cure for aging, but medical advancement will certainly extend lifespan. Wars, epidemics, accidents, all will curb growth. Gun violence and starvation deaths will be on the increase in the future if societal trends don't change. Vonnegut wasn't interested in how we get there, but how we react when we do. His lack of faith in our moral compass is obvious.
November 6, 2022
Riletto e... mitico come sempre. Lo ripeterò sempre all'infinito, ma come scriveva Kurt nessuno mai! Ha quella capacità di emozionare, far sorridere, far riflettere, tutto suo particolare e quello che lo caratterizza è il velo di malinconia che lascia trasparire dalle sue pagine, ti lascia con questo velo che si alza come facendoti lievitare e mettendoti di fronte a molti interrogativi sulla società odierna. La maggior parte dei suoi romanzi e racconti sono ormai da ricercarsi a non meno di 40 anni fa, eppure tra le sue righe riesco a scorgere le problematiche così vicine al nostro presente. Per esempio: qui in 2BR02B, scritto nell'ormai lontano 1962, si parla di sovrappopolazione, argomento che all'epoca era ancora poco sentito, eppure riesce a ricreare un'atmosfera così tangibile, anche con sole poche pagine, con dei dialoghi che all'apparenza possono apparire frivoli, ma che al loro interno racchiudono l'essenza della società del consumo e dell'apparire.
2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-
Siamo in un futuro lontano, imprecisato, la popolazione mondiale è tenuta sotto stretta sorveglianza, quelli che vivono, vivono di...
Insomma il nostro caro Kurt ci racconta sul "problema" della sovrappopolazione, con sempre il suo inimitabile humour, frizzante ma anche malinconico, satirico ma anche struggente. Kurt come racconti tu degli esseri umani nessuno mai!
2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-2BR02B-
Siamo in un futuro lontano, imprecisato, la popolazione mondiale è tenuta sotto stretta sorveglianza, quelli che vivono, vivono di...
Insomma il nostro caro Kurt ci racconta sul "problema" della sovrappopolazione, con sempre il suo inimitabile humour, frizzante ma anche malinconico, satirico ma anche struggente. Kurt come racconti tu degli esseri umani nessuno mai!
October 5, 2016
This is an dystopian thinker of short story that takes all of about 15 minutes to read, even if you’re slow like me. Writing more than a couple sentences would almost surely spoil it, so I’ll say almost nothing beyond this: future, population control & ethical suicide studios. Does that peak your interest or make you cringe? For me it was both.
November 30, 2023
A very short story by the amazing Kurt Vonnegut that popped up on my Amazon feed. Different, but gets right to the point in this futuristic tale of a supposedly perfect society where people live far longer and population is controlled. Once I found that the o in the title meant 'naught', it made more sense to me. Good stuff.
September 16, 2021
”Tutto era magnifico.
Non esistevano prigioni, periferie, manicomi, storpi, povertà o guerre.
Tutte le malattie erano state sconfitte, anche la vecchiaia.
La morte, salvo imprevisti, era un’avventura per volontari.”
Un mondo in cui domina la serenità, ed è annullato il dolore.
Non è quello che tutti sogniamo?
L’essere umano declinato nella sua forma distopica diventa, tuttavia, inquietante nel momento in cui si arroga il diritto di governare la vita e la morte.
In questo breve racconto (1962), Vonnegut mette in scena un pianeta dove non esiste più la sovrappopolazione e di conseguenza ogni problema legato ad essa.
Ogni nascita è consentita dopo la morte volontaria di un altro essere umano.
Questo dovrebbe essere il mondo felice creato dal Dottore Benjamin Hitz, Primario Ostetrico dell’ospedale di Chicago.
Basta comporre un numero: 2BR02B
Ed è tutto finito.
Una cosa però non è cambiata in questo mondo distopico: non tutti gli esseri umani hanno lo stesso concetto di felicità...
Non esistevano prigioni, periferie, manicomi, storpi, povertà o guerre.
Tutte le malattie erano state sconfitte, anche la vecchiaia.
La morte, salvo imprevisti, era un’avventura per volontari.”
Un mondo in cui domina la serenità, ed è annullato il dolore.
Non è quello che tutti sogniamo?
L’essere umano declinato nella sua forma distopica diventa, tuttavia, inquietante nel momento in cui si arroga il diritto di governare la vita e la morte.
In questo breve racconto (1962), Vonnegut mette in scena un pianeta dove non esiste più la sovrappopolazione e di conseguenza ogni problema legato ad essa.
Ogni nascita è consentita dopo la morte volontaria di un altro essere umano.
Questo dovrebbe essere il mondo felice creato dal Dottore Benjamin Hitz, Primario Ostetrico dell’ospedale di Chicago.
Basta comporre un numero: 2BR02B
Ed è tutto finito.
Una cosa però non è cambiata in questo mondo distopico: non tutti gli esseri umani hanno lo stesso concetto di felicità...
June 17, 2013
6/5
Yes, that's right. It's a 6/5 rating. 5/5 seems so... unfair.
Kurt Vonnegut is perhaps the most under-rated author of our literary history. This tiny short story (only 12 pages) is filled with so much satire, angst and anger that one tends to forget it is sci-fi. Although, this is the first story where the SF aspect is so well forgotten as the story develops, that even those repelled by SF would love this.
The title 2 B R 0 T B is an acronym for the eternal conflict in humanity - To Be Or Not To Be (RIP Shakespeare) - and this is exactly the theme of the story, in a world where aging is stopped, births and deaths are controlled to keep the population stagnant. But the science part ends there - and the trials of humans begin.
Good stories are moving and sad. Exceptional stories, like this one, leave us frustrated, angry and disturbed, And Vonnegut does that in exactly 12 pages. Forget your aversion to SF - this one's a classic.
Yes, that's right. It's a 6/5 rating. 5/5 seems so... unfair.
Kurt Vonnegut is perhaps the most under-rated author of our literary history. This tiny short story (only 12 pages) is filled with so much satire, angst and anger that one tends to forget it is sci-fi. Although, this is the first story where the SF aspect is so well forgotten as the story develops, that even those repelled by SF would love this.
The title 2 B R 0 T B is an acronym for the eternal conflict in humanity - To Be Or Not To Be (RIP Shakespeare) - and this is exactly the theme of the story, in a world where aging is stopped, births and deaths are controlled to keep the population stagnant. But the science part ends there - and the trials of humans begin.
Good stories are moving and sad. Exceptional stories, like this one, leave us frustrated, angry and disturbed, And Vonnegut does that in exactly 12 pages. Forget your aversion to SF - this one's a classic.
May 31, 2025
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
Não sou grande apreciadora de distopias, mas já percebi que é assim que gosto delas, curtas e grossas, e se forem satíricas, ainda melhor. 2BRO2B é o número para onde liga quem não quer viver mais neste mundo aparentemente tão perfeito e prefere cometer um suicídio ético, num serviço onde as funcionárias ficam com bigode passados cinco anos. Um conto certeiro no tom, nos diálogos, no final.
Não sou grande apreciadora de distopias, mas já percebi que é assim que gosto delas, curtas e grossas, e se forem satíricas, ainda melhor. 2BRO2B é o número para onde liga quem não quer viver mais neste mundo aparentemente tão perfeito e prefere cometer um suicídio ético, num serviço onde as funcionárias ficam com bigode passados cinco anos. Um conto certeiro no tom, nos diálogos, no final.
March 23, 2020
That ending!
This novel became available to me and I finally, finally read it. I am such a mood reader and it just came to me at the right time.
What can I say, if you read the synopsis, you know exactly what is going on! Peculiarly, with the current situation, I read this two weeks ago before any "quarantine" was issued where I live, but I was still strangely touched by the message and the unspoken, implied action of the characters.
The opening scene describes a father, waiting for his triplets to be born. It is during a time when there are restrictions on overpopulation and for every citizen's death, only one can be born. What is a father of triplets to do or to sacrifice for his triplets to live? The mother? Himself? One or two of his new babies?
2 B R 0 2 is the number to an assisted suicide hotline with the Federal Bureau of Termination and someone will be calling it, but it isn't who might think.
In a short amount of pages, Vonnegut created a dystopian, eerie story for thought. The usage of a father to be, exceeding the allowance of life brought into this world, is the ultimate position between a rock and a hard place and the perfect depiction of a despairingly, sad scenario of unified reforms to achieve a distributed wealth of unlimited resources.
Not really far fetched, this is a timeless classic that every generation should read and most likely feels different about as time goes on. Perhaps this will be a direction things are heading in the future...an ominous omen, indeed.
More of my reviews here:
Through Novel Time & Distance
This novel became available to me and I finally, finally read it. I am such a mood reader and it just came to me at the right time.
What can I say, if you read the synopsis, you know exactly what is going on! Peculiarly, with the current situation, I read this two weeks ago before any "quarantine" was issued where I live, but I was still strangely touched by the message and the unspoken, implied action of the characters.
The opening scene describes a father, waiting for his triplets to be born. It is during a time when there are restrictions on overpopulation and for every citizen's death, only one can be born. What is a father of triplets to do or to sacrifice for his triplets to live? The mother? Himself? One or two of his new babies?
2 B R 0 2 is the number to an assisted suicide hotline with the Federal Bureau of Termination and someone will be calling it, but it isn't who might think.
In a short amount of pages, Vonnegut created a dystopian, eerie story for thought. The usage of a father to be, exceeding the allowance of life brought into this world, is the ultimate position between a rock and a hard place and the perfect depiction of a despairingly, sad scenario of unified reforms to achieve a distributed wealth of unlimited resources.
Not really far fetched, this is a timeless classic that every generation should read and most likely feels different about as time goes on. Perhaps this will be a direction things are heading in the future...an ominous omen, indeed.
More of my reviews here:
Through Novel Time & Distance
April 2, 2018
56 years ago this was edgy stuff, now it's a big ol' marshmallow fluff and creamy peanut butter on bargain white bread sammy.
There's a name for those things. Anyone remember what it is? Anyway. Unless you're a Vonnegutterian and completist, this needn't take up your RAM or induce your REM.
There's a name for those things. Anyone remember what it is? Anyway. Unless you're a Vonnegutterian and completist, this needn't take up your RAM or induce your REM.
October 17, 2025
It was thoughtful of Vonnegut to publish the first draft of Welcome to the Monkey House. More authors should do this kind of thing! Like, wouldn't you enjoy reading the first drafts of Madame Bovary, Hamlet or The Gospel According to Saint Luke?
June 2, 2020
In Vonnegut's imagined future, aging has been cured. The government controls overpopulation by mandating that each new birth must be accompanied by the accidental death or voluntary suicide of another person. A man is in a hospital waiting room where his wife has given birth to triplets. The story sets up a moral dilemma where there is no good possible outcome to the situation.
Some characters think they live in a perfect world because they will never age, but their world has a dark, dystopian side too. The story has a great title, 2BR02B (To be or naught to be), which is the telephone number of the Federal Bureau of Termination. Chilling.
Some characters think they live in a perfect world because they will never age, but their world has a dark, dystopian side too. The story has a great title, 2BR02B (To be or naught to be), which is the telephone number of the Federal Bureau of Termination. Chilling.
June 3, 2020
This is my idea of a great short story--Dystopian in nature, with a twist ending. I wish I could say it sounded impossible, but I’m sorry to say it sounded like the future we might be headed for. Human life seems to have less and less worth to us as a society, and we seem to be happy to be less and less in control of our own destinies.
May 7, 2021
A powerful and intelligent allegory from a gifted writer.
June 6, 2016
While the concept was interesting, this story is proof that concept in and of itself is simply not enough to sustain a story, even one as short as this. The tension that would've made it interesting was nonexistent, and the way Vonnegut shamelessly info-dumped via stilted dialogue was positively criminal. This could've potentially been very thought-provoking, but the writing just makes it all so... insular. It feels like a story, like a fiction, it feels contrived, and so divorced from logic that it's impossible for me to entertain the question, "What if this ever became a reality?"
On a more positive note, it reminded me that I really need to finish Hamlet.
Read it here.
On a more positive note, it reminded me that I really need to finish Hamlet.
Read it here.
February 10, 2018
To be or not to be. The dystopia of the utopia!
Watch an adaptation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgaID...
August 28, 2011
Man, this was bleak. It is set in a future world where aging can be halted and the average age is somewhere around 130. Because people are living much longer and the planet's resources are depleted, the government keeps the US population at 40 million. The Federal Bureau of Termination provides several ways for people to die if they'd like to give up their life for a newborn. One man is at the hospital waiting for his wife to give birth to triplets, but he doesn't have enough volunteers to die so he'll have to make a choice. Like I said, totally bleak.
Read it here.
Or get it for free on Kindle here.
Read it here.
Or get it for free on Kindle here.
April 13, 2024
Hmmm
I’ve got to give this one some more thought. I read it fast and on multiple occasions so I might read it again.
I’ve got to give this one some more thought. I read it fast and on multiple occasions so I might read it again.
June 25, 2018
Vonnegut writes a story of a Utopian society where there is no poverty or disease, where ageing and even death have been vanquished. Strict population controls are in place; capped at 40 million.
In a world where death is no longer a natural inevitability, for every birth, a voluntary death must take place. 2BR02B, - to be or not to be - the hotline number for the Federal Bureau of Termination.
This was excellent. Like all good short stories, this one had the capacity to expand to a full book, and one that I would have loved to read.
If you're already a Vonnegut fan, you should definitely read this. If you're looking to start somewhere with this prolific author, this is an excellent place to do so. Its extremely well written, engaging, and thought provoking read that embodies his writing style and ideas.
In a world where death is no longer a natural inevitability, for every birth, a voluntary death must take place. 2BR02B, - to be or not to be - the hotline number for the Federal Bureau of Termination.
This was excellent. Like all good short stories, this one had the capacity to expand to a full book, and one that I would have loved to read.
If you're already a Vonnegut fan, you should definitely read this. If you're looking to start somewhere with this prolific author, this is an excellent place to do so. Its extremely well written, engaging, and thought provoking read that embodies his writing style and ideas.
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