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Never before published in its entirety in the United States, The Complete Roderick is John Sladek's masterpiece.Tags
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Member Reviews
What a wonderful, frustrating read!
The Complete Roderick is a very funny book, at times with delicious absurdity, but more often than not in a bleak, satiric way that takes aim at an amazingly diverse range of targets. Think "I, Robot" meets "Catch-22," and you won't be far wrong. It also offers lots of oddball supporting characters, who seem to pop in and out without ever going anyplace.
The book has many moments of brilliance, including chapters that could stand alone as miniature masterpieces. But unfortunately it doesn't hang together all that well as a novel. It also eventually begins to feel rather repetitive. How many times do we really need to go through O'Smith being thwarted in an effort to knock off our protagonist?
This is a show more book that could have been a masterpiece, but doesn't quite get there. It might have worked better as a shorter episodic "mosaic" novel. Or benefited from some aggressive editing.
Still, I am glad I read it. show less
The Complete Roderick is a very funny book, at times with delicious absurdity, but more often than not in a bleak, satiric way that takes aim at an amazingly diverse range of targets. Think "I, Robot" meets "Catch-22," and you won't be far wrong. It also offers lots of oddball supporting characters, who seem to pop in and out without ever going anyplace.
The book has many moments of brilliance, including chapters that could stand alone as miniature masterpieces. But unfortunately it doesn't hang together all that well as a novel. It also eventually begins to feel rather repetitive. How many times do we really need to go through O'Smith being thwarted in an effort to knock off our protagonist?
This is a show more book that could have been a masterpiece, but doesn't quite get there. It might have worked better as a shorter episodic "mosaic" novel. Or benefited from some aggressive editing.
Still, I am glad I read it. show less
Roderick
Roderick at Random.
Roderick at Random.
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S.F. Masterworks (Complete)
229 works; 15 members
SF Masterworks
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Author Information
129+ Works 2,741 Members
Some Editions
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Contains
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Robot Roderick: Kindheit und Jugend einer begabten Maschine
- Original title
- The Complete Roderick
- Original publication date
- 1980 (Roderick) (Roderick); 1983 (Roderick at Random) (Roderick at Random)
- Dedication
- For Pamela Sladek
- Original language
- English
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 334
- Popularity
- 94,175
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.04)
- Languages
- English, German
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 6
