It began with humor then the PTSD bled through and hemorrhaged while trying to deal with the human condition and war in an other worldly manner...so it goes.

This is quick and wonderful read. Potent. ( )

Have decided to reread all Vonnegut books in the order of publication. I still love this book. I was amazed at how relevant it still is. Haven't read it since which school and I am sure I got a lot more out of it now. ( )

A tale about the unpalatable technocratic and technocentric near-future. As his first published novel, a bit clunky and heavy-handed, but interesting injection of a non-mainstream idea in the mid 20thC. ( )

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. Who doesn't love a story that makes you realize you're just another cog in the machine and there's ultimately nothing you can do about it? ( )

What happens when most jobs are replaced by automation? Player Piano warns us of a different kind of dystopia -- one where everyone has food, and homes and material possessions, where technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, but also, where a divide has been created between those who can be replaced by machines and those who thrive. The novel does a great job of raising important questions about increased classism and job instability for displaced workers.

Certainly not my favorite Vonnegut book, but that seems to be the theme. ( )

Some books sail above your head, and "Piano Player" by Kurt Vonnegut is one of them. The scene is set in New York and is dystopian. Two groups rule the world - engineers and managers. Machines and the corporate machine rule these people. Then, the rest of the people live on the other side of the river.
Paul, a man headed for great things, revolts. In the process, his marriage breaks up. What happens in the end? I am unsure.

As I said, the book sailed above my head and flew into the great distance. ( )

1951. Has the third industrial revolution been a slow burner all this time, or is AI a 4th? Here we are in any case with these new tools replacing more facets of human thinking and this book is as relevant as ever 70 years on.

Pay heed to the barber in the story, who keeps himself up at night worrying about the machines coming for his job, only to design one that can do it and put himself into comfortable retirement but every one of his contemporaries out of work.

An interesting premise here is the idea, in contrast to the beliefs of political conservatives, that people want to work, and they want meaningful work. That isn't new and it wasn't new then, or perhaps it was, but in any case it's a truism that the right doesn't buy into. It's something we're going to struggle with as a society in the coming years, as we are going to need state backed job guarantees along the lines of that proposed by modern monetary theory if things go the way they're going. Which sounds suspiciously like the Reeks and Wrecks. So where do we go and what we do? ( )

it was hard to grasp until the very end where there was a Kevin Smith expository of the entire message

can totally see why people don't like this book but I felt enamoured.

as a human I am flawed. humanity is flawed. to create something would be to create something that is also flawed. if we do not, it will consume us and we will lose everything that means to be human.

extremely important as we reach that road where art seems to be stuffed in a corner. the balance of both is important, and this book is a symbol :)

yay art ( )

This was Vonnegut's first novel, and it's quite different in language and style from his later books -- rather more conventional, and less daring. However, as a description of a dysfunctional American society that is not very distant from our own, I think that this book ranks right up there with 1984 and Brave New World. ( )

Vonnegut at his worst. That is, stumbling, ham-fisted, and overwhelmed by his subject. A bit inspiring how such incompetency eventually found its notoriety. And think, by the end of his career Vonnegut was almost a good writer! ( )

Easily one of the best books I've ever read. I believe great art makes you think, rather than telling you what to think. Player Piano is a brilliant example of great art, showing you what it means when your autonomy, your freedoms are taken away, replaced with pre-programmed choices that have the best intentions behind them. It shows you what it means to be a man in a world where men are no longer needed. It shows you what might happen... or has already happened.

It makes you think. And, ultimately, that's what matters. ( )

How Vonnegut writes is just simple amazing. Every sentence a pleasure to read, every page a pure enjoyment. The whole book sounds even more important when you look at the world today. Just amazing. Highly recommended ( )

Solid, and very smart, but also very clunky and nowhere near as concise as the later books. Well worth reading. ( )

Unfortunately, this was a bit heavy handed to be effective satire. Yes, the machines are coming to kill us. I welcome that deep slumber. ( )

Both Vonnegut's first novel and my first Vonnegut novel, this was recommended to me because it is based on a GE-like company in a place based strongly on, and referencing, Schenectady. This is not a book to read just because it's based on an area that you recognize (I realize now that the person recommending it hadn't read it). However, it is an interesting book if you are looking for something that will get you really thinking about the trajectory of a society that continues to make machines to do things for humans, and creating an ideology in which this means that life has been improved for people, without really considering the affect it is having on humanity.

MIND TRIP ( )

Apparently this is Vonnegut's first novel, and of those of his I've read so far it's by a long margin his best. It's the only one with characterisation deep enough to get invested in anyone's storyline. It has some really funny satire of corporate culture.

It includes a pertinent and important critique of capitalism, in the sense that increasing levels of mechanisation should liberate humanity from increasing amounts of unpleasant work (which is what the ruling class here claims has happened), but under capitalism this is impossible, because you need money to pay for life's necessities and the only way to get it is by working – pretty hard, when almost all the jobs are being done by machines! While under socialism you would have the ever-decreasing amount of work being shared between everyone capable, under capitalism you get a steadily-growing group of unemployed workers, who are therefore destitute. Vonnegut's protagonist, Paul Proteus, gets a little misdirected and blames the machines themselves instead of the economic system, but you can easily identify the real problem ;)

The novel is really weak on the inclusion of females; it seems that almost every woman is a housewife (presumably because there are not enough jobs for even just a fraction of the male population…) but not actually everyone because Paul's secretary is a woman. At any rate, it seemed bizarre that a novel so concerned with how men should spend their lives would just ignore women completely.

While that was unsatisfying, I really enjoyed this overall. As you can see, four stars. ( )

Interesting to go back and re-read Vonnegut's first novel. It's not my favorite, but he really established himself with this one. You can see the beginning of certain recurring themes that continue throughout his lifetime of work. The humor is a bit more subtle than his later works, but there are some lovely hidden nuggets. Overall, a wonderful debut! ( )

This didn’t feel like any of the other books that I’ve read by Vonnegut, most likely attributed to the fact that it was his first novel. It was more serious than I anticipated, less humorous. I don’t want to say I won’t remember this book in five years, however I don’t think the thing in its entirety will stick. The characters and setting will fade, with the lesson being all that remains. ( )

This is the first Vonnegut book I've read since Slaughterhouse-Five 30 years ago. Apparently it's an early work and not considered his best. I liked it. Early into the book I was disappointed with his cynical view of society and the future. By the end I had great respect for what he was trying to say.

His characters are often caricatures rather then real people but he is an acute observer of who we are and who we are in danger of becoming.

I'll read more of his works. ( )

My least favorite Vonnegut so far. ( )

Not a great novel, but kind of interesting in light of all the hullabaloo around FB. Plus ca change... ( )

my favorite Vonnegut so far during my 2016 campaign season blitz ( )

Plot:
After World War III, the world has begun to rely more and more on machines and automation. This has led to a divided society: most people don't have to work and spend their lives with having pretty much all decisions made for them, while the small elite are managers and oversee the machines. Paul belongs to the latter group, but isn't entirely satisfied by state of things. That feeling is exacerbated when he is visited by his old friend Ed who takes him into the part of town where the masses live. They stumble on a resistance movement and find themselves thinking critically about the way things are for the first time of their lives.

Player Piano feels outdated in some ways, but other ways are still pretty current. Not bad for a novel that's 65 years old, but it won't become a favorite of mine regardless.

Read more on my blog: http://kalafudra.com/2017/07/09/player-piano-kurt-vonnegut/ ( )

The race to produce weaponry during WWIII pushed humans out of the manufacturing field - they're too inefficient and unreliable. Machines left engineers the elite of society relegating/separating the rest of the population to mere existence in little boxes, all the same with IQ absolutely determining one's fate.

"What have you got against machines?"

"They're slaves."

"Well, what the heck - I mean, they aren't people. They don't suffer. They don't mind working."

"No. But they compete with people."

"That's a pretty good thing, isn't it - considering what a sloppy job most people do of anything?"

"Anybody that competes with slaves becomes a slave."

A promising engineer begins to question the morality of life subservient to the efficiency of programmed machines (the segregation of society into useful and dependents) and ponders pursuing an alternate life trajectory.

"It was an appalling thought, to be so well-integrated into the machinery of society and history as to be able to move in only one plane, and along one line."

Written in 1952, it seems Vonnegut will always be relevant:

"He stared at the President and imagined with horror what the country must have been like when, as today, any damn fool little American boy might grow up to be President, but when the President had had to actually run the country!"

Plus, igniting or enhancing daily questioning of the absurdity of society. ( )