The Complete Roderick

Book excerpt: 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