Absolute Brilliance!

What a wonderful book! Funny and serious at the same time it explores what should we value about modern life. Vonnegut writes in a very clear understandable manner that allows the reader to fall fully into his way of thinking, which is laced with heart felt wisdom and insight. Highly recommended!

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Definitely worth 11 hours of your time

Full marks across the board for this one. Not only is this a wonderful example of Vonnegut's characteristially clear and evocative writing, but the story is so very relevant to the modern (2022) world. Substitute "algorithm" for "machine" and you have a bitingly funny and accurate picture of all that is oppressive about search engines and social media, written decades before the invention of home computers or the internet.

The performance is also outstanding. Christian Rummel captures every character (and there are a lot of them!) with a pitch-perfect voice, bringing them all to life in all their gloriously flawed eccentricity.

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Fantastic book, great narration

The short interview at the end is a bit strange, some weird complaining about young people, college professors and waffle about New York mixed with some more interesting stuff. The story itself is an all-time great and the narrator does a great job of differentiating the characters. Highly recommended

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Good voice actor, good story

The story was good, yet I felt towards the end it seemed somewhat rushed. I won’t go into specifics to avoid spoilers, but still worth a read.

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Dated? Great narrator!

Ok, 3 stars is not a bad review, it just means I think it’s good but neither great nor amazing.

This is his first novel from 1952, and I think it shows. It’s an interesting idea and interesting that it occurred to him we might lose our purpose the more automation takes over back then already. However, I think his imagining of what that might look like is quite short sighted.

Also, there was no thought behind what evolution women might have gone through in the time between his own culture and that of this book. We don’t know how much time passed, but it can’t have been long because women went from being home makers and the occasional secretary to being homemakers and the occasional secretary. But of course, the homemaker suffered under the rule of the machines too. What’s left to do, but watch tv if the machines do all the clothes and dishwashing, cooking and whatever else?

I’m glad I didn’t read this novel of Vonnegut’s first. I might have been put off. Putting all that aside, though, it is a good thought experiment on human enterprise.

The narrator was fantastic! Great subtle accents and a good speed, that one could accelerate manually without losing quality.

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3 people found this helpful

Surprisingly fresh all these years on

I used to be a great fan of KV in my youth and I was intrigued to return to him. Player Piano isn’t as polished as some of his later novels but it’s surprisingly fresh over 60 years on and I really enjoyed it. Excellent narration too.

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Still great, don't worry about it being dated

Despite being full of technical stuff dated in the 50s, the issues and ideas are still relevant and the story telling is timeless. Very well read, with good voice acting across the range of characters. A funny and thought provoking book.

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6 people found this helpful

Coming to a town near you soon

When our brains and imagination are just too big for our boots we end up here, be warned

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Uncanny prediction of today's world of automation.

I love Vonnegut's world view and style; his irreverence towards authority and satirical perspective. What makes him a superior satirist is how he doesn't need to resort to the hysterical. He's measured. His worlds, however inventive, are believable extrapolations of the real one.

I also think his irreverence is particularly mature. In this story which critiques thoughtless, directionless automation of industry in the name of unqualified "progress", he's very aware of the negative consequences of a luddite approach to technology. He's not so irresponsible to say "smash the system" and then walk away without any solutions. He also asks "and then what?" I'm not even sure he's on the side of his heroes who hope to smash the machines and return control to the people. My take home from this is we're damned if we do, damned if we don't when it comes to the use of tech. The best we can do is exploit tech in service of the sort of society we want, and not just for efficiency's sake, choosing carefully what we implement and what we don't for everyone's benefit.

As someone working in AI and concerned about the social and political ramifications of it, I can't believe Vonnegut was so "on it" over 50 years ago. We live in a prepubescent version of the tech utopia/nightmare he predicts. He's one of those writers who can look around him at our madness and synthesize it into a coherent criticism, show us common sense and suggest the humane thing to do.

One of my top ten novels.

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13 people found this helpful

brilliant

vonegut vision in player piano is immensely profound. the plot is engaging but the world is the true star of the novel, it's unsettling lyn accurate in many ways. I think Orwell reads vonegut...

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