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John Sladek
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The Complete Roderick Kindle Edition

by John Sladek (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.8 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
Two novels about the education of a young machine: “In a properly run universe Sladek’s Roderick would be considered a major American novel. Which it is.” —Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Roderick is a robot who learns. He begins life looking like a toy tank, thinking like a child, and knowing nothing about human ways. But as he will discover, growing up and becoming fully human is no easy task in a world where many people seem to have little trouble giving up their humanity.

The Complete Roderick—consisting of the Philip K. Dick Award nominee Roderick and Roderick at Random—is widely considered to be the most ambitious and genius work of a novelist described by The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as “the most formally inventive, the funniest, and very nearly the most melancholy of modern US science fiction writers.”

“A major comic talent . . . hilarious and serious.” —Sunday Times

“Superb . . . comparable with early Kurt Vonnegut.” —Time Out 

“To the small band of science-fiction humorists who can actually make you laugh—my own list features, in alphabetical order, Douglas Adams and Robert Sheckley—please add the name of John Sladek.” —The New York Times Book Review
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  1. Print length
    621 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    The Overlook Press
  4. Publication date
    January 4, 2005
  5. Reading age
    18 years and up
  6. File size
    3.8 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Superb comparable with early Kurt Vonnegut." Time Out

About the Author

John Sladek (1937-2000) was born in the United States and moved to the U.K. in 1966, where he became involved with the British New Wave movement and New Worlds Magazine, sometimes collaborating with his childhood friend, Thomas M. Disch. Sladek's other novels include The Reproductive System, The Muller-Fokker Effect, and Tik-Tok.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07QSTYDSY
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Overlook Press (January 4, 2005)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 4, 2005
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3.8 MB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 621 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

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John Sladek

John Sladek

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Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
28 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • blurg
    5.0 out of 5 stars Both Rod's required
    Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2009
    The last (most proximal) reviewer, certainly entitled to what this is: an opinion, neglected to mention that all the ellipses set up in the first 'roderick' have wonderful codas in the second book. If a reader is astute enough, I certainly wasn't nor am not, to catch all the wordplay and puns, some using antequated cultural references, they will stand in awe of the powerful intellect that was strict materialist, john sladek. I prefer these books to 'Tik-Tok'. I posit that Tik-Tok has already judged mankind and 'willfully' circumvents its Asimov circuits; Roderick only learns to judge humankind, mostly feebly so. The damnation of 20th century western culture comes from the garish, interwoven caricatures that fail to listen to anything other than their own bluster, not the vengeful glee of robot murdering tons'o'humans to point out a flawed culture.

    I echo MadDog's sentiment wrt to sadness post-completion. I missed its exhilaration.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Jeffrey Castel De Oro
    4.0 out of 5 stars Sci-Fi Classic reissued
    Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2010
    Verified Purchase
    I first encountered "Roderick" excerpted in Twilight Zone Magazine many years ago. Searching for Sladek in the Science Fiction section became my bookshop routine for years and years after that. I finally did located the novel and it's lesser sequel, but my original copies have long ago disappeared. I was therefore excited to find this reprint but a caveat, this paperback edition entitled "The Complete Roderick" is printed on acidic paper, and my new copy arrived today already burning it's own pages brown. Love this book (well, the first one anyways) but I hate cheap paper!!
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Viktor Nehring
    1.0 out of 5 stars $17. 95 for a kindle edition? Never. ...
    Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2017
    $17.95 for a kindle edition? Never.

    I have not read the book.
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  • Mad Dog
    5.0 out of 5 stars A masterpiece
    Reviewed in the United States on February 24, 2008
    John T. Sladek made his reputation in the SF community writing clever satires and parodies with the emphasis on AI and Robotics. "Roderick" is the life story of one such robot, and like Sladek's other masterful robot tale "Tik Tok", it involves a huge cast of characters and all kinds of twists and turns.

    What sets this apart is the tone. Sladek has stepped away from the black comedy and created a melancholy epic. This is his middle-age novel. Darker and more personal than most of his other work ("Bugs" being the exception), "Roderick" is about growing up, disillusionment, and self-realisation. It's still funny, but it's hard to tell who you're laughing at.

    I've read it twice, and each time I was sorry when it ended.
    8 people found this helpful
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  • Dave Deubler
    4.0 out of 5 stars For Many, One Roderick is Enough
    Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2008
    This volume combines Sladek's acclaimed novel Roderick with its sequel Roderick at Random. The first book is a darkly comic fantasy about a learning machine named Roderick, and his unusual upbringing. Wrested from his creators at too early an age, Roderick finds himself habitually used and abused by everyone he encounters, but still manages to take it all in stride. The tone of the story makes it stand out among a genre full of artificial intelligences, but the most endearing facet of the book is Roderick himself, who unlike many fictional robots, is very childlike in his limited knowledge-base. Like a mechanical Forrest Gump, Roderick does what he's told because he doesn't have any better ideas, and doesn't know enough to pass moral judgments on those who are giving the orders. The author slyly uses this device to poke ironic fun at many of the sillier aspects of 20th Century America, allowing us to see the effect our culture's messages have on one who accepts everything at face value. At the same time, Sladek clearly has little compassion for human foibles; the people Roderick encounters often represent the worst humanity has to offer, although most of them are very familiar types nonetheless. Even Ma and Pa Wood, who care for Roderick more than anyone, don't seem to really understand him. The story might have been a lot funnier if the reader didn't feel so bad for poor Roderick. As it is, he remains a tragicomic figure, and the novel is slightly less successful for this duality.

    The second novel, Roderick at Random, has less to offer in the way of interesting ideas, and is neither as funny nor as melancholy. Ultimately, it's more adventures without any real focus - a typical sequel. For those who just can't get enough of Roderick, this should be a decent value. For those who felt that the original novel was a touch overlong to begin with, perhaps the Complete Roderick is unnecessary.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Ruven Schwartz
    1.0 out of 5 stars If you just want SF, go for it; if you like good writing, tight stories, this ain't it
    Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2013
    For some odd reason the author keeps bringing in characters right up to the very end of the first novel, as if the reader were interested in meeting more characters when so many have run through the pages and disappeared, and mostly come and gone for no good or bad reason other than the autho needed them to develop something in his protagonist. Professors, geeks, secret agents, urban gypsies, evil businessmen, insipid lawmen, schoolyard bullies, none of whom matter much, come and go. They just - disappear. Maybe that's part of the idea of the way the robot learns about his world, people come and go like tv show characters, but it's no way to write a novel.

    And then there's some inexplicable twist with the people who raise the robot, as if their personal lives were an issue we were suddenly supposed to care about.

    A Disappointing book, all in all. Another SF work I didn't read when I was young enough to overlook the ineptitude of the writing and the disjointed construction of the novel for the enjoyment of the development of the innocent machine.
    2 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Lark
    5.0 out of 5 stars The adventures of Roderick Wood
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 10, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    This is a marvelous story of simultaneous and converging conspiracies and chance events, the origin, life and fate of Roderick Wood, robot, being the central theme running throughout.

    The story is very much dialogue driven, with character development and interaction taking precidence over, I felt, plotlines, world building etc. but this creates a fantastic pace and lends real page turning impetus to the progress of the storyline. In some ways I was disappointed with the finish, it seemed to end a little abruptly considering how the story had progressed to that point but it did feature solid conclusions for each of the characters which had been introduced throughout, this is the case with both of the books which make up this single volume.

    The book answers many of the questions which have haunted science fiction about why the hoped for "tommorrow" never arrived, doing so well through the dialogue and sequencing of chance events and accidents but also providing summation points which allow a kind of "recap" or "clarification" of the suspiscions anyone would have from reading up to that point. I liked this because between times the reader is allowed to do their own thinking and figure out what is happening but isnt left wondering entirely as to what was happening. There isnt really any surplus content but there are points at which you may be tempted to skip blocks of dialogue from parties or other scenes in which people are talking about intellectual diversions or academic subjects.

    Roderick himself is "born" as a consequence of a scam ran by a high ranking government official who has been misappropriating funds, the resulting cover up succeeds in covering up his existence for a time too, although attempts to destroy him and others involved in his development are bungled repeatedly or ruined by chance and accident. This introduces the theme of conspiracy and technological repression, there's good consideration of no matter how powerful and sophisticated a conspiracy may be that it is still subject to chance, caprice and the individual prejudice or accident effecting key players in its operation. Roderick himself develops and investigates the human condition throughout the book, appearing as the most human of all most of the time, discovers just what has happened and how his has benefited from the competition and conflict between government and private corporations, both equally reprehensible, amoral and pursuing their ends with murderous singularity of purpose.

    This is a very good book, a real page turner, with characters you are likely to remember for a long time, I would consider it optimistic sci fi of a sort, despite the overwhelming alienation, perfidious plotting etc. and being in many ways dystopian until the conclusion its main protagonist shows what a life is worth and what can be made of life despite its difficulties.
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  • Philip Pursglove
    3.0 out of 5 stars A word for those collecting the SF Masterworks...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 15, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Slight gripe here - don't get me wrong, I'm glad to get this book which has been difficult to find. But the picture above is the old cover from the original Gollancz SF Masterworks run (numbered, and with the black spines) - the book you're getting here is the new print with the yellow spines and the 'muted' front cover art. I'm collecting the series and wish it's been clearer which print I was getting.

    Won't stop me enjoying the story though, I'm sure!
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