Kurt Vonnegut, one of the most popular science-fiction, political, satirical and prophetic writers of our time, has broken his promise made in 1999 to never write another book.

In the jagged, craggy landscape of his psuedo-rants/memoirs, the reader is able to see how satisfying a broken promise can look.

The line between personal experience and falsehood has never been more painstakingly blurred than by Vonnegut’s earlier writing, and this short collection of anecdotes and philosophies is the closest he’s ever come to coming out and saying, “Yeah, this actually happened.”

The results are bittersweet. One doesn’t get the satisfaction of being led through the spiraling web of lies, truths, aliens and chaos that Vonnegut expertly weaves in almost every novel. Instead, we’re spoken to from a very realistic, low-standing podium by a consciously 82-year-old man.

It’s the same voice and content devoted fans are used to, but the delivery is more straightforward, which is a mixed blessing.

How valuable is knowing where Vonnegut got his obsession with Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount?” For some, knowing it was Powers Hapgood is enough. However, for those who need more, Vonnegut goes into further detail of his encounter with Hapgood in “Man Without a Country.”

Dresden of “Slaughter House Five,” extended families from “Slapstick,” the origin of his inappropriate figures laced in “Breakfast of Champions,” all the personal experiences leading up to their appearances in books and more are explained.

Whether this presentation is better than the novels of yore is debatable, but the content has never been richer in cynicism, humanism and freshwater socialism.