Roderick at Random

He isn't human; but he isn't all robot either. He started life in a lab, went to Parochial School, was kidnapped by gypsies, chased by roboticidal, and incompetent, hit-men, told fortunes on the Midway, and finally fostered by an elderly couple who gave up writing science fiction when their stories came true. He's Roderick, the first robot programmed to learn and think, and sent out into the world to re-invent it...

Prodigious, dazzling, inventive, RODERICK, is a modern masterpiece, a fabulous joyride through the whole crazy, zany funhouse of modern existence, and a parable about all human life.

A classic novel...It reeks simultaneously of Candide, Catch-22, Player Piano, The Wizard of Oz - Guardian

Superb...comparable with - at time even overtaking - early Kurt Vonnegut - Time Out

John Sladek is a science fiction writer whose novels are driven by an incisive, literate humour. IN fact he is downright funny. Mr Sladek's latest satire is up to his usual high standard...one of the few serious achievements in a medium which is rapidly exchanging innovation for self-indulgence...The prose is stunning, the characterisation immaculate, the insights unique: Roderick is a small masterpiece - Now!

Cover illustration: Ray Winder