August 27, 2006

Who is Kilgore Trout? Kilgore Trout. bn: 1907 (to American Parents) in Bermuda where he attended Grammar School until his father's job with the Royal Ornithological Society ended and they moved to Dayton, Ohio. Married & divorced 3 times, he has one child, Leo, a Vietnam Veteran. By 1974, Trout had written 117 novels & 2,000 short stories. "Venus on the Half Shell," Kilgore Trout's masterpiece, contains therein the legend of The Space Wanderer, Simon Wagstaff. A man of virtual immortality. "Without immortality, the universe is meaningless," he said."Ethics, morality, society as a whole are just means to get through life with the least pain. They can all be reduced to one term: economy."
posted by jeraboam 18 years ago
  • Yea, just try and find any other of Mr. Trout's great body of work :-)
  • Mr Eliot Rosewater thought highly of him, as I recall.
  • God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Kilgore Trout is indeed Theodore Sturgeon, the prolific and eternally penniless. For further reference see Sturgeon's short story anthologies A Touch of Strange and Theodore Sturgeon Is Alive and Well. Nice post.
  • Kilgore Trout is indeed Theodore Sturgeon, the prolific and eternally penniless. I really must be missing something here.
  • The guy who blogged at chaoticnotrandom.net called himself Kilgore Trout. It was a damn good blog. Alas, he's hung it up. (But retained the domain name.. There's hope!)
  • I'd never heard about the whole Farmer writing as Trout thing before, so thanks, very interesting! A rather irritating story, as well - Trout wasn't his, and if Vonnegut said no, that's Vonnegut's right! I think it's great when artists share, and collaborate, and we remix and revisit, but you don't get to be pissy because someone won't let you take their character and write books based on it. Sheesh. (Not to mention that Trout is simply too brilliant for us to ever see any of his books in print. It doesn't work that way, and sort of ruins the whole idea, showing that Farmer didn't really get Trout anyway...)
  • I need to read more Vonnegut. So far I've only digested Cat's Cradle and Breakfast of Champions - and that is in my opinion far too little Vonnegut in my literary diet.
  • Timequake's definitely worth a read. I laughed all the way through Galapagos.
  • Slaughter House Five is my absolute favorite. It's the best anti-war/time travel book I've ever read.
  • Dear god, how could I forget that? Of course I've read Slaughterhouse 5 - moron! Why did I blank on that one? Still, three books from Vonnegut is far to little - I should find more of his stuff. Nothing quite like opening a new book! The joy of reading, the satisfaction that it will sit patiently on my shelf until I read it again. Simple things make life happier.