© Publishers Weekly, 206.25:53. December 16, 1974.

Publishers Weekly: Review of Venus on the Half-Shell

Often in a Kurt Vonnegut novel a character will pause to recall the plot of one of Kilgore Trout's science fiction novels, and Trout himself was a principle character in Breakfast of Champions, where Vonnegut announced a long goodbye to him and other recurring stalwarts.

But, here he is again, an author this time, and wouldn't you know that he has a science fiction writer, Jonathan Swift Somers III, to whom he refers?

This novel is a pretty good pastiche of Vonnegut though the paragraphs are a trifle too long and the sex a little too obvious. When the second flood arrives (produced by the Hoonhors, who are attempting to clean up the planet), Simon Wagstaff escapes on a Chinese rocket with his pets, an owl and a dog. During the course of peripatetic adventures Simon wins immortality for himself and pets, joins forces with a beautiful female robot, gains and loses a tail, and is imprisoned for decades. It's fun.

© Publishers Weekly, 206.25:53. December 16, 1974.