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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.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
6 people are currently reading
416 people want to read
About the author
John Sladek
106 books80 followers
John Thomas Sladek
(generally published as John Sladek or John T. Sladek, as well as under the pseudonyms Thom Demijohn, Barry DuBray, Carl Truhacker and others) was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 41 reviews
January 14, 2016
Seriously underrated comic science-fiction novel, which satirizes so many things I'm not even going to start listing them. Toto Smilax, the mad genius who was brought up as a dog, is a particularly fine creation.
________________________
Having just finished Pynchon's brilliant Against the Day, I couldn't help wondering whether "Candlewood University" might possibly be a hat-tip to Aurora Candlewood, the engaging scientist-babe from this book. As many people have pointed out, Sladek's style is often rather similar to Pynchon's. And if so, could "Pugnax" possibly be a riff on "Smilax"?
________________________
Having just finished Pynchon's brilliant Against the Day, I couldn't help wondering whether "Candlewood University" might possibly be a hat-tip to Aurora Candlewood, the engaging scientist-babe from this book. As many people have pointed out, Sladek's style is often rather similar to Pynchon's. And if so, could "Pugnax" possibly be a riff on "Smilax"?
March 25, 2020
The first in Sladek’s repertoire of exhausting absurdist SF farces, the density of plot, character, and loopiness makes the novel problematic to read, plunging the reader into constant bafflement as the ideas come in frantic illogical leaps and bounds. The Pynchonian fondness for personnel pile-ups and plotless madness is stronger in later Sladeks like The Muller-Fokker Effect, although the pyrotechnic prose, winning wordplay, and LOL-packed dialogue kept this reader entertained.
March 12, 2013
More cheap vintage sci-fi paperbacks, found in a shop called Bucket of Blood in Chicago. This one a first American edition, as are a couple of the others. Read almost entirely in one long drive Chicago to Memphis.
Here, more of the manic invention of Sladek's The Steam-Driven Boy, but sustained in novel form. As with his stories, his satire can run towards the excessively zany, with various caricatures jerked mechanistically through bizarre plot devices. Except this is a story about runaway self-replicating machines converting the world into their own automated image, with the mechanically arbitrary rules of computers balanced absurdly against dehumanized military and governmental systems, CIA agents losing themselves to professional paranoia and falling into slapstick mistaken-identity chain-of-efftects, spasmodically slot-jerking Vegas gambling crowds harnessed as dynamos, and a brilliant vision of the entire city rube-goldburging into insanity, cleverly rendered, initially, as a series of incomprehensible disparate parts -- the system has evolved to a complexity where it only makes any sense in a broad view but is impenetrable to when any sub-section is viewed alone. Which seems to be the version of the modern world that concerns Sladek here. And so all of his mechanically implausible satire may actually be justified this time, even almost elegant, a huge cast of automatons shaken together by coincidence and authorial whim with a tight, hard interlocking of gears. Still kinda too zany for my pallet, but fun and inventive and in constant upheaval and unprediction.
Here, more of the manic invention of Sladek's The Steam-Driven Boy, but sustained in novel form. As with his stories, his satire can run towards the excessively zany, with various caricatures jerked mechanistically through bizarre plot devices. Except this is a story about runaway self-replicating machines converting the world into their own automated image, with the mechanically arbitrary rules of computers balanced absurdly against dehumanized military and governmental systems, CIA agents losing themselves to professional paranoia and falling into slapstick mistaken-identity chain-of-efftects, spasmodically slot-jerking Vegas gambling crowds harnessed as dynamos, and a brilliant vision of the entire city rube-goldburging into insanity, cleverly rendered, initially, as a series of incomprehensible disparate parts -- the system has evolved to a complexity where it only makes any sense in a broad view but is impenetrable to when any sub-section is viewed alone. Which seems to be the version of the modern world that concerns Sladek here. And so all of his mechanically implausible satire may actually be justified this time, even almost elegant, a huge cast of automatons shaken together by coincidence and authorial whim with a tight, hard interlocking of gears. Still kinda too zany for my pallet, but fun and inventive and in constant upheaval and unprediction.
February 2, 2016
Well, here's a heap of absurdity that both pre-dates and sends up all the nanobot apocalypses of SF history - as well as everything else it can think of, including but not limited to, the military, espionage, government research projects, international politics, the space race (we are talking 1968, here) and not least, the author himself, who keeps mentioning The Forklift Truck, a boring technical manual he wrote, in an ironic, self-deprecating way...
The more absurd the exaggerated stereotypical caricature, the more memorable the character, including such loons as the paranoid/murderous CIA agent who has to prevent the enemy from committing suicide, the US Army General who is all bombast and bluster but is hiding an embarrassing secret, the evil scientist who practices dentistry on himself and the journalist who makes up jokey headlines about his own wife absconding with another man.
Three stars worth of silliness.
The more absurd the exaggerated stereotypical caricature, the more memorable the character, including such loons as the paranoid/murderous CIA agent who has to prevent the enemy from committing suicide, the US Army General who is all bombast and bluster but is hiding an embarrassing secret, the evil scientist who practices dentistry on himself and the journalist who makes up jokey headlines about his own wife absconding with another man.
Three stars worth of silliness.
December 13, 2024
Check out my full, spoiler free, video review HERE.
This one started out funny and enjoyable but as it went on I got fatigued by the amount of absurdity. Sladek accomplished what he set out to write and the writing was great, but I think I would have enjoyed it more as a short story or novella. Excited to read some of his short stories before trying another novel, but Sladek is someone I want to read more from.
This one started out funny and enjoyable but as it went on I got fatigued by the amount of absurdity. Sladek accomplished what he set out to write and the writing was great, but I think I would have enjoyed it more as a short story or novella. Excited to read some of his short stories before trying another novel, but Sladek is someone I want to read more from.
November 21, 2019
Caleidoscopico: è il primo aggettivo che mi viene in mente per descrivere l'opera prima di Sladek. Caleidoscopico nei personaggi, caleidoscopico nelle situazioni: Sladek costruisce un enorme circo, ci lancia i suoi personaggi e orchestra lo spettacolo. Il numero iniziale di personaggi, tutti diversissimi, che presenta all'inizio può essere destabilizzante, ma l'intreccio di situazioni mano a mano si dipana, e quel caos di luoghi e persone alla fine si risolve in uno scontro-molto anticoncezionale-finale.
Scritto con un tono frizzante e umoristico, e con una forte vena satirica, Sladek si lancia in un'invettiva antimilitarista.
Adesso non mi resta che cercare di recuperare il resto della sua produzione.
Scritto con un tono frizzante e umoristico, e con una forte vena satirica, Sladek si lancia in un'invettiva antimilitarista.
Adesso non mi resta che cercare di recuperare il resto della sua produzione.
February 8, 2014
Review from http://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/too-clever-by-n-1n-a-review-of-the-reproductive-system-by-john-t-sladek/
John Sladek was one of the most remarkable authors of his time, which is to say, roughly speaking, 1965 to 1990. Not that he did not live beyond that time (he died in 2000) but that pretty much brackets his key works. His short fiction is often brilliant -- like a diamond so bright it hurts the eyes. This book was his first published novel. And novel it is.
Make no mistake, this is a remarkable book. Sladek’s writing is marvellous -- controlled, evocative, effective. His invention seems boundless, his ability to draw a character in a few lines rarely matched. Even if a few are caricatures, they are well-drawn ones.
He is one of my favourite authors. Often compared to Vonnegut, Sladek is even less sentimental and in his own way grimmer. He is often very funny -- his short fiction can be coruscatingly hilarious. ‘Elephant with Wooden Leg’, 'The Secret of the Old Custard’, ‘Masterson and the Clerks’, these are not stories quickly forgotten. Yet the humour is often dark -- it’s at the expense of all of us. It is not comfortable. People are stupid, obsessive, short-sighted, ignorant, venal and violent. Machines -- a key occupation of his was machines -- are relentless, logical and always, always demonstrating that whatever we do there are repercussions we could never anticipate -- and often we don’t even bother trying.
In The Reproductive System we get self replicating machines released from a rogue US weapons laboratory, a laboratory set up by a failing toy company to tap into the boundless funds of the US military. We have an effective villain and a couple of reasonably sympathetic protagonists and a cast of crazies swirling about them.
As a reading experience, I kept turning pages because I did want to find out what happens. But hanging over the whole work is a sense of it being a game. Characters, even carefully drawn ones, seem to do what is required of them rather than what grows out of their nature and their situation. There is an artificial-ness about it all that is quite intentional -- Sladek played with Oulipo. A section in the middle consists of 26 paragraphs whose first letters are A, B, C... Sladek uses his own name as a source of an anagram... At least one heading is a palindrome... And so on. I am left with the nagging feeling that the book is a game whose rules I do not know.
In essence, the book is enjoyable but in a very specific way. Sladek is never emotionally in the trenches with his characters. He is the God, manipulating them from above, putting them through the movements he needs to complete his pattern. Any author does this, but in this book it is more evident; the characters seem subservient to the pattern, rather than it growing out of them. Sladek throws up sharp insights, economical and remarkably effective turns of phrase, uses a great selection of quotes from a wide range of sources to begin each chapter, delights with his deft character portraits, weaves a complex, interlinking plot, has much to say about the time and places in which the story is set, and is often deeply, bleakly funny.
However, you don’t laugh or cry with anyone in the book, but smile ironically with the author. The people in the book are the rats, Sladek is the behavioural scientist, and you are looking over his shoulder. While the rats run through the maze, electrocute themselves, attack each other, mate, and occasionally get the fragment of food, Sladek describes their ridiculous behaviour to you.
It’s brilliant, it’s admirable, it’s clever. It’s not lovable; nor is it meant to be.
Now hear this.
John Sladek was one of the most remarkable authors of his time, which is to say, roughly speaking, 1965 to 1990. Not that he did not live beyond that time (he died in 2000) but that pretty much brackets his key works. His short fiction is often brilliant -- like a diamond so bright it hurts the eyes. This book was his first published novel. And novel it is.
Make no mistake, this is a remarkable book. Sladek’s writing is marvellous -- controlled, evocative, effective. His invention seems boundless, his ability to draw a character in a few lines rarely matched. Even if a few are caricatures, they are well-drawn ones.
He is one of my favourite authors. Often compared to Vonnegut, Sladek is even less sentimental and in his own way grimmer. He is often very funny -- his short fiction can be coruscatingly hilarious. ‘Elephant with Wooden Leg’, 'The Secret of the Old Custard’, ‘Masterson and the Clerks’, these are not stories quickly forgotten. Yet the humour is often dark -- it’s at the expense of all of us. It is not comfortable. People are stupid, obsessive, short-sighted, ignorant, venal and violent. Machines -- a key occupation of his was machines -- are relentless, logical and always, always demonstrating that whatever we do there are repercussions we could never anticipate -- and often we don’t even bother trying.
In The Reproductive System we get self replicating machines released from a rogue US weapons laboratory, a laboratory set up by a failing toy company to tap into the boundless funds of the US military. We have an effective villain and a couple of reasonably sympathetic protagonists and a cast of crazies swirling about them.
As a reading experience, I kept turning pages because I did want to find out what happens. But hanging over the whole work is a sense of it being a game. Characters, even carefully drawn ones, seem to do what is required of them rather than what grows out of their nature and their situation. There is an artificial-ness about it all that is quite intentional -- Sladek played with Oulipo. A section in the middle consists of 26 paragraphs whose first letters are A, B, C... Sladek uses his own name as a source of an anagram... At least one heading is a palindrome... And so on. I am left with the nagging feeling that the book is a game whose rules I do not know.
In essence, the book is enjoyable but in a very specific way. Sladek is never emotionally in the trenches with his characters. He is the God, manipulating them from above, putting them through the movements he needs to complete his pattern. Any author does this, but in this book it is more evident; the characters seem subservient to the pattern, rather than it growing out of them. Sladek throws up sharp insights, economical and remarkably effective turns of phrase, uses a great selection of quotes from a wide range of sources to begin each chapter, delights with his deft character portraits, weaves a complex, interlinking plot, has much to say about the time and places in which the story is set, and is often deeply, bleakly funny.
However, you don’t laugh or cry with anyone in the book, but smile ironically with the author. The people in the book are the rats, Sladek is the behavioural scientist, and you are looking over his shoulder. While the rats run through the maze, electrocute themselves, attack each other, mate, and occasionally get the fragment of food, Sladek describes their ridiculous behaviour to you.
It’s brilliant, it’s admirable, it’s clever. It’s not lovable; nor is it meant to be.
Now hear this.
December 24, 2018
3/10.
Dos libros he leído del autor. Este y "Tik-tok". Mejor leed este último.
Dos libros he leído del autor. Este y "Tik-tok". Mejor leed este último.
September 11, 2019
Very thoroughly developed mad scientist, generally humorous style, almost kind of a screwball comedy, I want to forgive it for the generally outlandishly unrealistic development of the self-replicating robots take over the world idea, but part of the lack of realism was not quite using it as fully as it could have, really undermining the whole self-replication by putting it under centralized control. Many threads seemed kind of aimless or unfinished (or shoehorned in to finish up), parts were less enjoyable than others, and I'm praying the ending was meant to be ironic or something, but overall solid early madhouse scifi robot novel.
June 8, 2018
Crazy and goofy. Published in 1968, the tone of this novel is similar to other works of that time. Kind of like Pynchon, Vonnegut, PKD, and others. Hallucinatory, surreal at times, but kind of messy. A fun and bewildering ride.
August 27, 2012
aka "Mechasm". As mad a book as Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker's Guide" series...
February 24, 2016
review of
John Sladek's Mechasm
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 22, 2016
This is just the measley truncated review for the full review: "DNA'S MOL HATH JOKES": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
This bk was.. odd.. or maybe it was just the mood I was in when I read it.. It's a sortof Dr. Strangelove style parody.. I got a copy of it b/c it looked like humorous SF, something I never get tired of; I got it b/c I hadn't read anything by Sladek yet & I was looking for a new author. Reputedly, the 1st title that this was published under was The Reproductive System. There's a wryness to that that's missing from the title Mechasm but Mechasm's good too. I look forward to reading more by him - esp what he wrote under his various pseudonyms. The cover of this edition proclaims:
"SCIENCE WAS NEVER FUNNIER!
FICTION WAS NEVER MORE FANTASTIC!
SEX WAS NEVER SO AUTOMATIC!"
& that's not tooooooooo misleading.. but Sladek's a little deeper than I was expecting from such a lead-in. The action originates in "Millford, Utah". There is a Millford, UT. Authors often avoid common names or real names of places to avoid unintentional implications to potential real-life counterparts. Did Sladek pick Milford as a location because it was sooo smalll (that wd fit the plot) & add an "l" to avoid too close an association?
The real life Milford, UT, is reputed to've had a population of 279 at the beginning of the 20th century & 1,368 as of a 2012 Census Bureau estimate ( http://www.milfordut.com/about_us.mai... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford... ). Perhaps it was less than 1,000 in 1968 when The Reproductive System was 1st published. I'm impressed that they even have a website. I'm tempted to visit the place. How hard did Sladek research before he chose this as his subject tiny town?
"Home of Shelley something, Millford lies about halfway between Las Vegas, Nevada, and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) buried deep in a Colorado mountain. The name "Millford" is an honorific; there has never been a stream through this part of the desert, nor a mill, nor anything to grind in a mill. Perhaps it was named ironically, or wishfully. Founders of other desert towns have, after all, given them pretty names, hoping that (by sympathetic magic) pretty reality would follow." - p 9
After copying that paragraph I decided to go back to Milford's website to see whether there had really never been a mill or any water there b/c I remember glimpsing s mention of fishing on the site when I 1st looked at it. This was at nite &, Lo & Behold!, the server wasn't available so I reckon Milford doesn't feel the need to publicize itself 24/7. Now it's the afternoon of the next day & the server's back. On the website, under "Things To Do" it says:
"The town is relatively quiet, with two motels, two restaurants and a fast-food place. Some visitors fish at nearby Minersville Reservoir, once a state park but now a recreation area operated by Beaver County. Desert lovers can explore ghost towns and old mines in the nearby mountains." - http://www.milfordut.com/about_us.mai...
That leaves the answer somewhat ambiguous for me but I reckon Sladek was right.
A father & son run business are faced w/ economic failure as their walking dolls are no longer popular:
""Looks swell to me, Pop," said Louie loyally. He had caught his fist inside the jar of Sooper Proteen tablets. It had not occurred to Louie not to reach into a jar with the spring grip developer in his hand. "I think it's a neat little product."
""But it isn't wanted, son. Little girls don't want Wompler's Walking Babies any more. They want Barbie dolls. Dolls they can dress up in fashions." His voice grew thick with fury, and he flushed purple beneath his sunburn. "Dolls that can't walk a single step!"" - p 14
Louie & his dad are an almost Laurel-&-Hardy-esque comedic duo: "He wanted to learn how to kill a man with Zen—without even touching him, they say. Then there was Kabuki, and there was deadliest Origami. Man!" - p 15
Since ignorance & gullibility rule, pseudo-scientific double-talk can do wonders:
"At each exhibit, Grandison would pause while Cal named the piece of equipment. Then he would repeat the name softly, with a kind of wonder, nod sagely and move on. Cal was strongly reminded of the way some people look at modern art exhibitions, where the labels become more important to them than the objects. HE found himself making up elaborate names.
""And this, you'll note, is the Mondrian Modular Mnemonicon."
""—onicon, yes.""
[..]
"A briar pipe became a "zygotic pipette," the glass ashtray a "Piltdown retort," and the lamp a "phase-conditioned Aeolian." Paper clips became "nuances."" - p 23
For those of you who may not've caught the jokes above I'll at least point out that "Piltdown" is a reference to a scientific hoax called the "Piltdown Man":
"In 1912 Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist claimed to have discovered the ‘missing link’ between ape and man. He had found part of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown village in Sussex, England. Dawson wrote to Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum at the time, about his find.
"Dawson and Smith Woodward started working together, making further discoveries in the area. They found a set of teeth, a jawbone, more skull fragments and primitive tools, which they suggested belonged to the same individual.
"Smith Woodward made a reconstruction of the skull fragments, and the archaeologists hypothesised that the find indicated evidence of a human ancestor living 500,000 years ago. They announced their discovery at a Geological Society meeting in 1912. For the most part, their story was accepted in good faith.
"However, in 1949 new dating technology arrived that changed scientific opinion on the age of the remains Using fluorine tests, Dr Kenneth Oakley, a geologist at the Natural History Museum, discovered that the Piltdown remains were only 50,000 years old. This eliminated the possibility of the Piltdown man being the missing link between humans and apes as at this point in time humans had already developed into their Homo sapiens form.
"Following this, biological anthropologist Dr Joseph Weiner and human anatomist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, both from Oxford University, worked with Dr Oakley to further test the age of the Piltdown findings. Their results showed that the skull and jaw fragments actually came from two different species, a human and an ape, probably an orangutan. Scratches on the surfaces of the teeth, visible under the microscope, revealed that the teeth had been filed down to make them look human. They also discovered that most of the finds from the Piltdown site had been artificially stained to match the local gravels.
"The conclusion: Piltdown Man was an audacious fake and a sophisticated scientific fraud." - http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/depa...
"Having proven fraud, the question that remained was who had been responsible for the deception. Woodward had a strong reputation for honesty, and his innocence was generally acknowledged. Dawson, instead, was fingered as the likely culprit. His motive for perpetrating the hoax was complex, since he never profited from it financially. But it seemed likely that he had done it to gain scientific fame and recognition. After the British Museum team published their findings, it was then discovered that Dawson had trafficked in other fake antiquities. This seemed to confirm that he probably was the culprit behind the Piltdown man hoax.
"Today most still agree with the verdict that Dawson was the hoaxer, but controversy continues to simmer. Some argue that Dawson worked with an accomplice, perhaps Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a young priest who briefly participated in the dig. Others place the blame elsewhere entirely. Martin Hinton, an employee at the British Museum whom Woodward once refused a job, has been implicated ever since a boxful of artificially stained bones that may have belonged to him was discovered in 1975. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, has been named as a possible suspect. Doyle lived near Piltdown and had a strong interest in paleontology." - http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/t...
Sladek isn't only a funny man, he gets technical at times too: "(c) Some computers had already been used to solve problems in circuitry, this in effect "redesigning" themselves. But there remained what seemed an unbridgeable gap between these and a true self-reproducing machine." - p 26 But it's not long before parody kicks back in again, in this case a parody of gossip:
""Crap!" spat a navy technician whose rolled-up sleeves revealed tattoos of Walt Disney characters. "The real scuttlebutt is, he's a Rooshian. All that security stuff is to keep the other Rooshians from assassinating him. The real scuttlebutt is, he invented a way of putting monkey brains in the heads of little children."" - p 28
A self-reproducing machine is developed & it 'inevitably' escapes its lab:
""Oh, don't worry," Cal said. It seemed to him that he was still trying to pick up the runaway cell, but bright white clouds kept getting in his way. Steam?
"All at once, he realized the clouds were real; he was looking at the sky. He rolled over and sat up, hands buried in cool grass.
"A file drawer marked "Secret" scooted past, pursued by a mob of people in white coats. "Stop it! Catch it!"
"How odd, he thought with a tolerant smile. Chasing file drawers." - p 40
Chapter VIII, "THE END OF THE WORLD", begins w/ an epigraph credited to be an "Old Saying": "What are little girls made of? Contain dextrose, maltose, monosodium glutamate, artificial flavoring and coloring; sodium propionate added to retard spoilage." Just whose "Old Saying" is that exactly? It cd be a sly reference to another novel.. or, as seems likely, just something that Sladek made up for this occasion. Speaking of parody, the next one up is up there w/ Frank Zappa's commentaries on 'American Womanhood':
"Quickly Susie showered with Nice, the 24 hour soap that gets at odors other soaps just seem to miss, and rolled on plenty of Shut, to be sure about those offensive odors. After dusting all over with Lady Clinge talc, she slipped on her Modaform 6-way-stretch panty girdle that b-r-e-a-t-h-e-s, her Deepline Modaform Sport-support bra, and began applying Classique Parfum, the scent that makes every woman an empress, every man a slave." - p 64
Parodies of SF movie titles run thru the entire bk:
""Sure, why not?" Ron said. "Like in Attack of the Fungamen, everyone protested the dangerous experiments, right? Like in Goz, they demonstrate against the army's impotence, remember? And in The Day the Earth Caught Cold————"" - pp 67-68
A parody of conservatism yields this:
""Are you planning on studying medicine yourself, Mr. Porteus?"
""No I'm not, Mrs. Suggs." He removed the glasses, startling her with the hard planees of his face. "No, I'm afraid the medical profession is a dead lettet, these days. Despite all our efforts to prevent it, socialized medicine is on its way—and with it, starvation for doctors." - p 69
Ha ha! That was 1968. Now it's 2016. Not only do we not have "socialized medicine", wch might help us join the civilized world w/ Canada & France, but we have something that's a total travesty of it. Here's a link to a short movie I made that only addresses the tip-of-the-overpriced-brainwashing-needle: http://youtu.be/tjB3QBz4LAc . &, no, the drs are far from starving - but it's not the drs who're the problem as much as it is the completely corrupt & greedy people who (wo)man the helm of the middle(wo)men juggernaut: the insurance companies. May they die off like the dinosaurs.. but much faster.
Sladek is remarkably persistent in his incisions beneath the pretty surface:
"It was black, luxuriant hair shot with silver gray of the same shade as his foulard tie. This was embroidered with black anthrax bacilli, carefully knotted, and clipped with a tiny silver scalpel. His suit was a quiet gray, his shirt of television blue, though he had no real intention of appearing before news cameras. The only real spot of color about him was his lapel pin from the Blood Bank, a red plastic droplet." - p 82
"The banns were published on two continents. Toto and Nan spent their evenings planning hysterectomies, new and dangerous techniques of anesthesia. Then, without warning, their castles of ether collapsed.
"A muffled stranger came to call upon Toto in his lab, where he was dissecting a cadaver on the eve of their wedding.
""You must not marry Nan Richmons."
""But why not?" asked Toto. His brow darkened. "I must warn you, sir, to be careful what you say about her."
""Why, you ask?" The stranger laughed savagely. "Two reasons: First, she is already married——to me."
""I care nothing about that. This is 1935, man! Let us be civilized. Her past is———"
""Stay! The second reason is——is that I removed her appendix over two years ago." - p 85
I feel like I often call attn to what I think is probably obvious but know may very well not be: "castles of ether" is a variation on the common expression "castles of sand" - meaning something built of a material easily subject to quick destruction. That expression may not be common enuf anymore for people to recognize a variation thereon immediately. A castle of sand can collapse but can a castle of ether? Does ether become a solid at low temperatures & therefore become susceptible to collapsing? Talk about a relationship cooling off! Anyway, I use a similar technique of making substitutions in expressions. EG: "tip-of-the-overpriced-brainwashing-needle", written above, is a take-off on "tip-of-the-iceberg". How many of you noticed that?
Ahem.
John Sladek's Mechasm
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 22, 2016
This is just the measley truncated review for the full review: "DNA'S MOL HATH JOKES": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...
This bk was.. odd.. or maybe it was just the mood I was in when I read it.. It's a sortof Dr. Strangelove style parody.. I got a copy of it b/c it looked like humorous SF, something I never get tired of; I got it b/c I hadn't read anything by Sladek yet & I was looking for a new author. Reputedly, the 1st title that this was published under was The Reproductive System. There's a wryness to that that's missing from the title Mechasm but Mechasm's good too. I look forward to reading more by him - esp what he wrote under his various pseudonyms. The cover of this edition proclaims:
"SCIENCE WAS NEVER FUNNIER!
FICTION WAS NEVER MORE FANTASTIC!
SEX WAS NEVER SO AUTOMATIC!"
& that's not tooooooooo misleading.. but Sladek's a little deeper than I was expecting from such a lead-in. The action originates in "Millford, Utah". There is a Millford, UT. Authors often avoid common names or real names of places to avoid unintentional implications to potential real-life counterparts. Did Sladek pick Milford as a location because it was sooo smalll (that wd fit the plot) & add an "l" to avoid too close an association?
The real life Milford, UT, is reputed to've had a population of 279 at the beginning of the 20th century & 1,368 as of a 2012 Census Bureau estimate ( http://www.milfordut.com/about_us.mai... & https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford... ). Perhaps it was less than 1,000 in 1968 when The Reproductive System was 1st published. I'm impressed that they even have a website. I'm tempted to visit the place. How hard did Sladek research before he chose this as his subject tiny town?
"Home of Shelley something, Millford lies about halfway between Las Vegas, Nevada, and the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) buried deep in a Colorado mountain. The name "Millford" is an honorific; there has never been a stream through this part of the desert, nor a mill, nor anything to grind in a mill. Perhaps it was named ironically, or wishfully. Founders of other desert towns have, after all, given them pretty names, hoping that (by sympathetic magic) pretty reality would follow." - p 9
After copying that paragraph I decided to go back to Milford's website to see whether there had really never been a mill or any water there b/c I remember glimpsing s mention of fishing on the site when I 1st looked at it. This was at nite &, Lo & Behold!, the server wasn't available so I reckon Milford doesn't feel the need to publicize itself 24/7. Now it's the afternoon of the next day & the server's back. On the website, under "Things To Do" it says:
"The town is relatively quiet, with two motels, two restaurants and a fast-food place. Some visitors fish at nearby Minersville Reservoir, once a state park but now a recreation area operated by Beaver County. Desert lovers can explore ghost towns and old mines in the nearby mountains." - http://www.milfordut.com/about_us.mai...
That leaves the answer somewhat ambiguous for me but I reckon Sladek was right.
A father & son run business are faced w/ economic failure as their walking dolls are no longer popular:
""Looks swell to me, Pop," said Louie loyally. He had caught his fist inside the jar of Sooper Proteen tablets. It had not occurred to Louie not to reach into a jar with the spring grip developer in his hand. "I think it's a neat little product."
""But it isn't wanted, son. Little girls don't want Wompler's Walking Babies any more. They want Barbie dolls. Dolls they can dress up in fashions." His voice grew thick with fury, and he flushed purple beneath his sunburn. "Dolls that can't walk a single step!"" - p 14
Louie & his dad are an almost Laurel-&-Hardy-esque comedic duo: "He wanted to learn how to kill a man with Zen—without even touching him, they say. Then there was Kabuki, and there was deadliest Origami. Man!" - p 15
Since ignorance & gullibility rule, pseudo-scientific double-talk can do wonders:
"At each exhibit, Grandison would pause while Cal named the piece of equipment. Then he would repeat the name softly, with a kind of wonder, nod sagely and move on. Cal was strongly reminded of the way some people look at modern art exhibitions, where the labels become more important to them than the objects. HE found himself making up elaborate names.
""And this, you'll note, is the Mondrian Modular Mnemonicon."
""—onicon, yes.""
[..]
"A briar pipe became a "zygotic pipette," the glass ashtray a "Piltdown retort," and the lamp a "phase-conditioned Aeolian." Paper clips became "nuances."" - p 23
For those of you who may not've caught the jokes above I'll at least point out that "Piltdown" is a reference to a scientific hoax called the "Piltdown Man":
"In 1912 Charles Dawson, an amateur archaeologist claimed to have discovered the ‘missing link’ between ape and man. He had found part of a human-like skull in Pleistocene gravel beds near Piltdown village in Sussex, England. Dawson wrote to Arthur Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the Natural History Museum at the time, about his find.
"Dawson and Smith Woodward started working together, making further discoveries in the area. They found a set of teeth, a jawbone, more skull fragments and primitive tools, which they suggested belonged to the same individual.
"Smith Woodward made a reconstruction of the skull fragments, and the archaeologists hypothesised that the find indicated evidence of a human ancestor living 500,000 years ago. They announced their discovery at a Geological Society meeting in 1912. For the most part, their story was accepted in good faith.
"However, in 1949 new dating technology arrived that changed scientific opinion on the age of the remains Using fluorine tests, Dr Kenneth Oakley, a geologist at the Natural History Museum, discovered that the Piltdown remains were only 50,000 years old. This eliminated the possibility of the Piltdown man being the missing link between humans and apes as at this point in time humans had already developed into their Homo sapiens form.
"Following this, biological anthropologist Dr Joseph Weiner and human anatomist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, both from Oxford University, worked with Dr Oakley to further test the age of the Piltdown findings. Their results showed that the skull and jaw fragments actually came from two different species, a human and an ape, probably an orangutan. Scratches on the surfaces of the teeth, visible under the microscope, revealed that the teeth had been filed down to make them look human. They also discovered that most of the finds from the Piltdown site had been artificially stained to match the local gravels.
"The conclusion: Piltdown Man was an audacious fake and a sophisticated scientific fraud." - http://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/depa...
"Having proven fraud, the question that remained was who had been responsible for the deception. Woodward had a strong reputation for honesty, and his innocence was generally acknowledged. Dawson, instead, was fingered as the likely culprit. His motive for perpetrating the hoax was complex, since he never profited from it financially. But it seemed likely that he had done it to gain scientific fame and recognition. After the British Museum team published their findings, it was then discovered that Dawson had trafficked in other fake antiquities. This seemed to confirm that he probably was the culprit behind the Piltdown man hoax.
"Today most still agree with the verdict that Dawson was the hoaxer, but controversy continues to simmer. Some argue that Dawson worked with an accomplice, perhaps Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a young priest who briefly participated in the dig. Others place the blame elsewhere entirely. Martin Hinton, an employee at the British Museum whom Woodward once refused a job, has been implicated ever since a boxful of artificially stained bones that may have belonged to him was discovered in 1975. Even Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes novels, has been named as a possible suspect. Doyle lived near Piltdown and had a strong interest in paleontology." - http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/t...
Sladek isn't only a funny man, he gets technical at times too: "(c) Some computers had already been used to solve problems in circuitry, this in effect "redesigning" themselves. But there remained what seemed an unbridgeable gap between these and a true self-reproducing machine." - p 26 But it's not long before parody kicks back in again, in this case a parody of gossip:
""Crap!" spat a navy technician whose rolled-up sleeves revealed tattoos of Walt Disney characters. "The real scuttlebutt is, he's a Rooshian. All that security stuff is to keep the other Rooshians from assassinating him. The real scuttlebutt is, he invented a way of putting monkey brains in the heads of little children."" - p 28
A self-reproducing machine is developed & it 'inevitably' escapes its lab:
""Oh, don't worry," Cal said. It seemed to him that he was still trying to pick up the runaway cell, but bright white clouds kept getting in his way. Steam?
"All at once, he realized the clouds were real; he was looking at the sky. He rolled over and sat up, hands buried in cool grass.
"A file drawer marked "Secret" scooted past, pursued by a mob of people in white coats. "Stop it! Catch it!"
"How odd, he thought with a tolerant smile. Chasing file drawers." - p 40
Chapter VIII, "THE END OF THE WORLD", begins w/ an epigraph credited to be an "Old Saying": "What are little girls made of? Contain dextrose, maltose, monosodium glutamate, artificial flavoring and coloring; sodium propionate added to retard spoilage." Just whose "Old Saying" is that exactly? It cd be a sly reference to another novel.. or, as seems likely, just something that Sladek made up for this occasion. Speaking of parody, the next one up is up there w/ Frank Zappa's commentaries on 'American Womanhood':
"Quickly Susie showered with Nice, the 24 hour soap that gets at odors other soaps just seem to miss, and rolled on plenty of Shut, to be sure about those offensive odors. After dusting all over with Lady Clinge talc, she slipped on her Modaform 6-way-stretch panty girdle that b-r-e-a-t-h-e-s, her Deepline Modaform Sport-support bra, and began applying Classique Parfum, the scent that makes every woman an empress, every man a slave." - p 64
Parodies of SF movie titles run thru the entire bk:
""Sure, why not?" Ron said. "Like in Attack of the Fungamen, everyone protested the dangerous experiments, right? Like in Goz, they demonstrate against the army's impotence, remember? And in The Day the Earth Caught Cold————"" - pp 67-68
A parody of conservatism yields this:
""Are you planning on studying medicine yourself, Mr. Porteus?"
""No I'm not, Mrs. Suggs." He removed the glasses, startling her with the hard planees of his face. "No, I'm afraid the medical profession is a dead lettet, these days. Despite all our efforts to prevent it, socialized medicine is on its way—and with it, starvation for doctors." - p 69
Ha ha! That was 1968. Now it's 2016. Not only do we not have "socialized medicine", wch might help us join the civilized world w/ Canada & France, but we have something that's a total travesty of it. Here's a link to a short movie I made that only addresses the tip-of-the-overpriced-brainwashing-needle: http://youtu.be/tjB3QBz4LAc . &, no, the drs are far from starving - but it's not the drs who're the problem as much as it is the completely corrupt & greedy people who (wo)man the helm of the middle(wo)men juggernaut: the insurance companies. May they die off like the dinosaurs.. but much faster.
Sladek is remarkably persistent in his incisions beneath the pretty surface:
"It was black, luxuriant hair shot with silver gray of the same shade as his foulard tie. This was embroidered with black anthrax bacilli, carefully knotted, and clipped with a tiny silver scalpel. His suit was a quiet gray, his shirt of television blue, though he had no real intention of appearing before news cameras. The only real spot of color about him was his lapel pin from the Blood Bank, a red plastic droplet." - p 82
"The banns were published on two continents. Toto and Nan spent their evenings planning hysterectomies, new and dangerous techniques of anesthesia. Then, without warning, their castles of ether collapsed.
"A muffled stranger came to call upon Toto in his lab, where he was dissecting a cadaver on the eve of their wedding.
""You must not marry Nan Richmons."
""But why not?" asked Toto. His brow darkened. "I must warn you, sir, to be careful what you say about her."
""Why, you ask?" The stranger laughed savagely. "Two reasons: First, she is already married——to me."
""I care nothing about that. This is 1935, man! Let us be civilized. Her past is———"
""Stay! The second reason is——is that I removed her appendix over two years ago." - p 85
I feel like I often call attn to what I think is probably obvious but know may very well not be: "castles of ether" is a variation on the common expression "castles of sand" - meaning something built of a material easily subject to quick destruction. That expression may not be common enuf anymore for people to recognize a variation thereon immediately. A castle of sand can collapse but can a castle of ether? Does ether become a solid at low temperatures & therefore become susceptible to collapsing? Talk about a relationship cooling off! Anyway, I use a similar technique of making substitutions in expressions. EG: "tip-of-the-overpriced-brainwashing-needle", written above, is a take-off on "tip-of-the-iceberg". How many of you noticed that?
Ahem.
October 31, 2024
3.5/5
Sladek is the first writer I've encountered who even remotely resembles Vonnegut in style, form, and subject matter. Sladek is not as refined as Vonnegut, and Mechasm certainly has more graphic sexual content and violence than anything that I've ever read from the later. Though, like a lot of Vonnegut's works, Mechasm follows a broad cast of characters that are all loosely tied together in the most absurd ways. Here, a secret government project has produced a self-replicating system of robots that function like cells, who voraciously consume all the metal they can find in order to both grow in size and produce more of themselves. Honestly though, these robots aren't exactly the focus of the novel. Instead, they suffuse into the background of nearly every scene, which gives the characters a common struggle. The book follows several groups in the US who witness the expansion of the self-replicating system, and an absurd government spy operation in Morocco, where France is attempting to launch a mission to claim the moon.
Through the course of Mechasm, Sladek takes satirical shots at an uncountable number of things, including: government overspending, the military industrial complex, scientific academia, consumerism, gender relations, American exceptionalism, formulaic fiction, etc.. Sladek clearly sympathized with left-leaning libertarian ideals, and was a devoted skeptic. All of these more serious satirizations are interspersed with slapstick humor and absurdist plotting. Not all the jokes land, but a surprising amount of them do, and I'm impressed by the ratio that I experienced. Humor is such an ephemeral thing, written humor especially so. Anything that was written more than 60 years ago and can make me laugh in the present day deserves a lot of credit. There are so many absurd and outlandish turn of events that it's hard to remember them all, but the book overall was very memorable on the whole.
When Sladek switches into less farcical writing he shows that he can really do some beautiful prose work. Really the whole book is a cut above in terms of prose quality, especially when compared to his peers of the time period, though it's not the best I've ever read either. There's a section of text that describes a group entering 'the belly of the beast' as it were, as their runaway car takes them into Las Vegas, which has been converted into a nightmarish landscape of machines. This section is particularly noteworthy and hallucinogenic. Unfortunately there are also sections of boredom and monotony, where his prose is touchy at best. This is really where Vonnegut outstrips Sladek, because I can't remember any Vonnegut book where there was as much unevenness as Mechasm.
A very pleasant, funny, and enjoyable read that is significantly different than a lot of the stuff being produced at the time, which is refreshing. The central premise hooked me, and the absurdity and skepticism kept me coming back in spite of the unpolished quality of the novel. Sladek is definitely worth looking into if you enjoy this type of writing.
Sladek is the first writer I've encountered who even remotely resembles Vonnegut in style, form, and subject matter. Sladek is not as refined as Vonnegut, and Mechasm certainly has more graphic sexual content and violence than anything that I've ever read from the later. Though, like a lot of Vonnegut's works, Mechasm follows a broad cast of characters that are all loosely tied together in the most absurd ways. Here, a secret government project has produced a self-replicating system of robots that function like cells, who voraciously consume all the metal they can find in order to both grow in size and produce more of themselves. Honestly though, these robots aren't exactly the focus of the novel. Instead, they suffuse into the background of nearly every scene, which gives the characters a common struggle. The book follows several groups in the US who witness the expansion of the self-replicating system, and an absurd government spy operation in Morocco, where France is attempting to launch a mission to claim the moon.
Through the course of Mechasm, Sladek takes satirical shots at an uncountable number of things, including: government overspending, the military industrial complex, scientific academia, consumerism, gender relations, American exceptionalism, formulaic fiction, etc.. Sladek clearly sympathized with left-leaning libertarian ideals, and was a devoted skeptic. All of these more serious satirizations are interspersed with slapstick humor and absurdist plotting. Not all the jokes land, but a surprising amount of them do, and I'm impressed by the ratio that I experienced. Humor is such an ephemeral thing, written humor especially so. Anything that was written more than 60 years ago and can make me laugh in the present day deserves a lot of credit. There are so many absurd and outlandish turn of events that it's hard to remember them all, but the book overall was very memorable on the whole.
When Sladek switches into less farcical writing he shows that he can really do some beautiful prose work. Really the whole book is a cut above in terms of prose quality, especially when compared to his peers of the time period, though it's not the best I've ever read either. There's a section of text that describes a group entering 'the belly of the beast' as it were, as their runaway car takes them into Las Vegas, which has been converted into a nightmarish landscape of machines. This section is particularly noteworthy and hallucinogenic. Unfortunately there are also sections of boredom and monotony, where his prose is touchy at best. This is really where Vonnegut outstrips Sladek, because I can't remember any Vonnegut book where there was as much unevenness as Mechasm.
A very pleasant, funny, and enjoyable read that is significantly different than a lot of the stuff being produced at the time, which is refreshing. The central premise hooked me, and the absurdity and skepticism kept me coming back in spite of the unpolished quality of the novel. Sladek is definitely worth looking into if you enjoy this type of writing.
July 25, 2024
Confession time. I am not a fan of overt satire. Frankly, it's a matter of tone. Satire is wired into science fiction, part of its DNA, but I do not care for the other aspects of SF to be overlain by a thick veneer of tongue-in-cheek satirical chic. Therefore, I've never cared for Sladek. I read this in order to be a completist of the original Ace Specials.
This is my problem, though I suspect there are other literary choices attached to the Voice of the derisive satirist that are just as problematic. (This is one reason I cannot abide Vonnegut. His voice, that sing-songy condescension, which he deployed quite intentionally as a consequence of his assessment of the average American's reading level, as well as the usual insistence at depicting so much of his subject matter as unintentional absurd....anyway.) There are several art forms I don't like as a matter of style, an aesthetic reaction I have over nearly 60 years of reading (and listening and looking) been unable to overcome.
That said, the conceits Sladek employed are interesting, clever, and in a few instances prophetic. I've given it 3 stars instead of the 2 I thought it merited in recognition of my innate bias against this form.
This is my problem, though I suspect there are other literary choices attached to the Voice of the derisive satirist that are just as problematic. (This is one reason I cannot abide Vonnegut. His voice, that sing-songy condescension, which he deployed quite intentionally as a consequence of his assessment of the average American's reading level, as well as the usual insistence at depicting so much of his subject matter as unintentional absurd....anyway.) There are several art forms I don't like as a matter of style, an aesthetic reaction I have over nearly 60 years of reading (and listening and looking) been unable to overcome.
That said, the conceits Sladek employed are interesting, clever, and in a few instances prophetic. I've given it 3 stars instead of the 2 I thought it merited in recognition of my innate bias against this form.
January 17, 2019
Sladek was a master of absurdist science fiction and an author who has been criminally neglected since his death. In this 1968 novel, which foreshadows todays concerns about humans becoming surpassed by technology - especially nanotechnology - the author bowls headlong through a send-up of everything from small town newspapers to the cold war, military tunnel vision to mad scientist clichés. Imagine a cross between Philip K Dick and Terry Pratchett and you'll be in the ballpark. Almost docked a star for the whiff of deus ex machina that lingers about the ending, but with a plot as stylishly silly as this book has, it's not in any way out of place.
November 28, 2025
Absolutely bonkers. They really don’t make them like this anymore. The SFF of the New Wave may have sometimes been scattershot and overreaching in its ambition but there’s nothing quite like it. A melting pot of ideas and approaches the likes of which wouldn’t be touched with a ten foot stick by the mainstream publishing of today. Sladek’s novel doesn’t always work but the sublime moments more than make up for the rest.
March 23, 2020
Entertaining and weird but early
Sladek got better later, but this is still a kick. Very trippy and full of silly prose tricks. Not deep, but makes up for it with magnificent breadth.
Sladek got better later, but this is still a kick. Very trippy and full of silly prose tricks. Not deep, but makes up for it with magnificent breadth.
July 18, 2017
It's just too dumb.
October 15, 2019
Tho' it has been several decades since I read this book, it has stayed with me. I found lol funny at the time.
December 27, 2019
Bizarre and hilarious. I can't remember ever laughing so hard at a book. I'm tempted to give it 5 stars simply because the amount of guffaws it elicited.
April 5, 2020
A lot of comparisons made to Vonnegut, but more of a mix of Tom Robbins and Thomas Pynchon to me. Don't really understand the point of the French rocket strand. This kind of thing is meant to entertain through sheer accumulation of incident, but you really have to be in the mood to go with it. The characters are cardboard types, the puns are laboured, and the ideas not as clever as Sladek thinks. Pynchon can pull it off because he manages to make you feel there's more going on under the surface. Sladek doesn't have that style or depth.
June 9, 2020
I just found it hard to get into this book.
I couldn't keep track of the characters.
It did get better as it went, but I still wanted to just finish it so I could read something else.
I couldn't keep track of the characters.
It did get better as it went, but I still wanted to just finish it so I could read something else.
September 19, 2021
A fun read. Highly enjoyable.
September 22, 2022
A wild mixture of humor and science fiction. At times, it seems like everyone in the book knows everyone else.
August 17, 2014
Sladek has a particular writing style of manic and complex multi-character narrative, perhaps perfected in his magnum opus ‘Roderick’. Here, Sladek employs his sharp and incisive talent for satire and characterisation to expose the hypocrisies of US society.
In an effort to save their ailing doll-manufacturing business, the Wompler family apply to the government for a research grant, and very shortly find their research headed by the dysfunctional trio of Professor Toto Smilax and Kurt and Karl, the Frankenstein brothers. The aim of Project 32 is to create a Von Neumann machine, ie self-reproducing mechanisms which may or not ultimately have military applications.
Prototypes in the form of small mobile grey boxes are produced, and on being fed metal, proceed to construct others, each time improving on the original design.
Inevitably, some of the boxes escape and ‘The Reproductive System’ as Smilax terms it, begins to spread across America.
Sladek is fond of using a large cast of characters, and his novels resemble an intricate and complex farce, in that inevitably seemingly unrelated characters turn out to have some connection with each other, such as Mary, whose relationships with men seem to connect several of the characters leading to bizarre but oddly logical consequences.
A sub-plot involves Mary’s husband, an obsessively prudish newspaper editor, being drafted into the CIA and becoming the new partner of a deranged agent, determined to undermine the Russians’ attempt to infiltrate a French Moon landing attempt.
Sladek’s plotting is faultless, and in a brilliant scene in which various people (for various reasons) are wandering around Marrakesch in astronaut’s suits both the Russian and American agents end up in the rocket while the French astronaut is left on the ground. As the hijack of the rocket threatens to cause a major international incident, both agents are ordered to kill themselves in order that the blame for the hijack can be laid at the door of the country of the survivor. Thus, the agents are put in the surreal position of having to keep each other alive.
If this novel has a fault it is that is a frantic roller-coaster ride and one gets occasionally lost by the welter of bizarre yet fully rounded characterisations.
The Reproductive System itself, obviously, rather like Roderick the robot, is merely a device around which Sladek builds his savage vision of the US. It is a Heath-Robinson fantasy and Sladek makes no attempt to explain its physical workings or structure, but rather merely presents us with the surreal results of its development, the most strange and fascinating of which is the transformation of Kurt and Karl into robotic mannikins whose heads have been replaced with cathode-ray tubes.
Deceptively frothy and lightweight, It’s a vicious and very amusing portrait of American society of the 1960s, and a refreshing antidote to some of the more paranoiac novels of the previous decade.
In an effort to save their ailing doll-manufacturing business, the Wompler family apply to the government for a research grant, and very shortly find their research headed by the dysfunctional trio of Professor Toto Smilax and Kurt and Karl, the Frankenstein brothers. The aim of Project 32 is to create a Von Neumann machine, ie self-reproducing mechanisms which may or not ultimately have military applications.
Prototypes in the form of small mobile grey boxes are produced, and on being fed metal, proceed to construct others, each time improving on the original design.
Inevitably, some of the boxes escape and ‘The Reproductive System’ as Smilax terms it, begins to spread across America.
Sladek is fond of using a large cast of characters, and his novels resemble an intricate and complex farce, in that inevitably seemingly unrelated characters turn out to have some connection with each other, such as Mary, whose relationships with men seem to connect several of the characters leading to bizarre but oddly logical consequences.
A sub-plot involves Mary’s husband, an obsessively prudish newspaper editor, being drafted into the CIA and becoming the new partner of a deranged agent, determined to undermine the Russians’ attempt to infiltrate a French Moon landing attempt.
Sladek’s plotting is faultless, and in a brilliant scene in which various people (for various reasons) are wandering around Marrakesch in astronaut’s suits both the Russian and American agents end up in the rocket while the French astronaut is left on the ground. As the hijack of the rocket threatens to cause a major international incident, both agents are ordered to kill themselves in order that the blame for the hijack can be laid at the door of the country of the survivor. Thus, the agents are put in the surreal position of having to keep each other alive.
If this novel has a fault it is that is a frantic roller-coaster ride and one gets occasionally lost by the welter of bizarre yet fully rounded characterisations.
The Reproductive System itself, obviously, rather like Roderick the robot, is merely a device around which Sladek builds his savage vision of the US. It is a Heath-Robinson fantasy and Sladek makes no attempt to explain its physical workings or structure, but rather merely presents us with the surreal results of its development, the most strange and fascinating of which is the transformation of Kurt and Karl into robotic mannikins whose heads have been replaced with cathode-ray tubes.
Deceptively frothy and lightweight, It’s a vicious and very amusing portrait of American society of the 1960s, and a refreshing antidote to some of the more paranoiac novels of the previous decade.
March 16, 2025
8.5/10
Wow, what a great writer. Sure you have to click into Pratchett mode and prepare for non-stop silliness, but this is high, tight and jam packed full of good humour from top to toe.
It's one of those books you read and then immediately panic that you need to read everything he or she has ever written before you die, which of course I plan to do with glorious Simak and his fellow New Wavers.
I did Fall out of love with US sci-fi, as I picked all the wrong books 10 years or so back (super dry harder science stuff), so it was great to get some help from sci fi masterworks series, grabbing this and then the incredible Flowers for Algernon soon after.
Masterworks is a fantastic resource, as are these collector's yellow backs, with bright text on good paper. But one problem I do have with Gollancz in general, including their side printed, round cornered editions, is that they are far too tightly bound, with narrow margins on the inside so I have to break their backs to read easily, or hold in a very uncomfortable manner, tilting each facing page to the light as I go.
Because of this I do tend to go for even cheaper old pubs like Panther if I can get them for a couple of quid, which is a shame as the font size on these crusty originals is rarely above 6pt! I like the bigger font size of the reissues so I guess i'll just have to have 2 editions of my favourite books. Also I picked up a battered, yellow gollancz Next of Kin by Frank Russell and it already had its back broken, so maybe poor conditioned second hand is the way to go.
I seem to remember getting a touch confused with the last few chapters as the machines stomp across the States, and a farcical chapter about spacemen shooting each other while running around the narrow backstreets of Marrakesh, and getting all mixed up, although funny, did confuse my limited noggin. A much needed re-read will soon put my moaning, petty quibbles to rest I'm sure.
update: reread complete, and tittered at every tightly scripted page, but there are definitely a handful of tricksy sequences which lost me by trying to be too clever for its own good. An 8 is probably right for this one, and I think a calming, boring fantasy book like Blue Sword, inbetween each of these New Wave satirical 'comedies' will help me spread the jokes around without irritation creeping in.
Wow, what a great writer. Sure you have to click into Pratchett mode and prepare for non-stop silliness, but this is high, tight and jam packed full of good humour from top to toe.
It's one of those books you read and then immediately panic that you need to read everything he or she has ever written before you die, which of course I plan to do with glorious Simak and his fellow New Wavers.
I did Fall out of love with US sci-fi, as I picked all the wrong books 10 years or so back (super dry harder science stuff), so it was great to get some help from sci fi masterworks series, grabbing this and then the incredible Flowers for Algernon soon after.
Masterworks is a fantastic resource, as are these collector's yellow backs, with bright text on good paper. But one problem I do have with Gollancz in general, including their side printed, round cornered editions, is that they are far too tightly bound, with narrow margins on the inside so I have to break their backs to read easily, or hold in a very uncomfortable manner, tilting each facing page to the light as I go.
Because of this I do tend to go for even cheaper old pubs like Panther if I can get them for a couple of quid, which is a shame as the font size on these crusty originals is rarely above 6pt! I like the bigger font size of the reissues so I guess i'll just have to have 2 editions of my favourite books. Also I picked up a battered, yellow gollancz Next of Kin by Frank Russell and it already had its back broken, so maybe poor conditioned second hand is the way to go.
I seem to remember getting a touch confused with the last few chapters as the machines stomp across the States, and a farcical chapter about spacemen shooting each other while running around the narrow backstreets of Marrakesh, and getting all mixed up, although funny, did confuse my limited noggin. A much needed re-read will soon put my moaning, petty quibbles to rest I'm sure.
update: reread complete, and tittered at every tightly scripted page, but there are definitely a handful of tricksy sequences which lost me by trying to be too clever for its own good. An 8 is probably right for this one, and I think a calming, boring fantasy book like Blue Sword, inbetween each of these New Wave satirical 'comedies' will help me spread the jokes around without irritation creeping in.
April 19, 2016
When you read the title The Reproductive System: A science fiction novel what immediately springs to mind? If it's machines that can self-replicate then you're spot on. John Sladek has somehow managed to hit on almost every single sci-fi cliché in this one slim book and create a delicious parody that had me shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all. The basic premise is that a scientist has discovered how to create machines that can reproduce. However, it's pretty clear that he plans to put them to a nefarious purpose (also the name of my rap group). Characters are introduced almost at random with the most insane backstories and names (Wompler? Sounds like something from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.). In true sci-fi fashion, all the individual storylines merge together at the end to create something completely over the top and scientific ++. I thought it was a really fun read and if you're a fan of the more 'classic' science fiction novels then you'll most definitely enjoy this. It's satirical and sarcastic without being preachy. In short, it's hilarious.
Sorry this one's a bit short but the book itself wasn't that lengthy and I can't say much without revealing the ludicrous plot. :-P
Sorry this one's a bit short but the book itself wasn't that lengthy and I can't say much without revealing the ludicrous plot. :-P
August 16, 2017
orfani di vonnegut? sofferenti di astinenza da nuove opere di tom robbins? precipitatevi a recuperare questo vecchio libretto, che la sellerio fece finire nel circuito dei reminders qualche anno fa (e che dovreste pagare poco meno di 3 euro). troverete parecchie cose che vi renderanno lieti: personaggi sopra le righe, tutti in qualche modo connessi tra loro, una presa in giro del militarismo, macchine impazzite, la torre eiffel che vola, spie che sospettano di tutto, beatnick che protestano, uno scienziato pazzo, colpi di scena a ripetizione e persino un giornalista che si chiama barthemo in omaggio a donald barthelme. insomma: a me ha fatto parecchio sorridere e -accidenti-ma ha messo voglia di recuperare il resto della sua produzione, purtroppo in gran parte inedita in italia..
February 6, 2017
Typical kitchen sink madcap farce of the period, only it has a Sci-Fi plot. In the end the farcical elements are what makes this book more annoying than entertaining, and I would love to see someone revisit this idea, keeping it comic but less chaotic. To get a sense of what that would be like, read the opening chapters up to the point where the Moroccan subplot is introduced, and then pick it up again where the Moonshot subplot ends. The only thing that you would be missing in between is a brilliant spy -v- spy byplay which is fun but out of place entirely in this novel. So out of place that there is no real resolution to it.
July 20, 2023
This is Sladek’s debut, and it’s much better than some of his later stuff because it *actually* has a plot.
Some hilarious bits in here, mainly in the first half, before it tails off a bit, then has a brief revival during the full-on slapstick astronaut bit.
Very much Vonnegut-lite, which is fine. It’s just frustrating because I’ve read Tik-Tok, so I know that John Sladek had it in him to just write concise, funny, high-stakes sci-fi satire. This isn’t quite it.
Some hilarious bits in here, mainly in the first half, before it tails off a bit, then has a brief revival during the full-on slapstick astronaut bit.
Very much Vonnegut-lite, which is fine. It’s just frustrating because I’ve read Tik-Tok, so I know that John Sladek had it in him to just write concise, funny, high-stakes sci-fi satire. This isn’t quite it.
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