The Reproductive System

Wompler's Walking Babies once put Millford, Utah, on the map. But they aren't selling like they used to. In fact, they aren't selling at all and the only alternative to winding the company up is to tap the government for a research grant. And so Wompler Research Laboratories and Project 32 come into being.

The plan is to produce self-replicating mechanisms; identical cells equipped to repair intracellular breakdowns, convert power from their environment and create new cells. But suddenly the nondescript grey metal boxes start crawling about the laboratory, feeding voraciously on any metal... and multiplying at an alarming rate.

John Sladek was born in America in 1937 but moved to the UK in 1966, where he became involved with the British New-Wave movement. He began writing sf with 'The Happy Breed' which appeared in Dangerous Visions in 1967. He is now recognized as one of the most brilliant satirists of out time. His novels and short story collections include The Muller-Fokker Effect, Tik-Tok, Roderick and The Lunatics of Terra. He moved back to Minneapolis in the mid-1980s, where he died in March 2000.