Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., remains something of a paradox among science-fiction writers. Although his place of importance in serious American fiction is now secure, his relationship to the genre that nurtured him has become increasingly tenuous. He has repeatedly denied being a science-fiction writer, at one point calling himself "a soreheaded occupant of a drawer labeled 'science fiction'" and complaining that "so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal." Yet Vonnegut's contribution as the first major writer since George Orwell and Aldous Huxley to bridge the gulf between science fiction and traditional fiction should not be underestimated.

Born into a prominent Indianapolis family, Vonnegut first exercised his writing talents as an editor of his high-school newspaper and later pursued what would prove to be a lifelong interest in the sciences, studying chemistry and biology at Cornell University. After some sobering wartime experiences which supplied material for...