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Bugs
This comic novel about an Englishman lost in the surreal high-tech computer country of America's mid-west describes how the hero Fred Jones goes to America to seek his fortune and ends up with his private life out of control, working for the KGB and people wanting to murder him.
220 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1989
3 people are currently reading
41 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 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 12, 2020
Sladek was one of those writers who contributed to the New Wave of Science Fiction in the 1960s. His SF always had a kind of sideways slant, not as bonkers as R A Lafferty but not conventional in any way.
This novel has a Science-Fictional premise in that it postulates the creation of a thinking robot but is designed more as a satire on the contemporary corporate culture of the 1980s and of USian manners, usages (Tea tier tgo for “To eat here, or to go) and sexual mores. It also rather spectacularly blows out of the water Gene Wolfe’s first rule of writing: ‘never name a character Fred.’
Said Fred is Manfred Jones, an English writer who has come to New York at the behest of his agent only to find that the project he had been lured with does not exist. His wife, Susan, is disgusted by their cockroach infested rooms and soon flies back home. Fred applies for a job as a technical writer at VIMNUT Industries in Minneapolis. He is mistaken for someone else and taken on - as a software engineer - and the misapprehensions go on from there.
He is rescued from a cloud of gnats by a Soviet spy calling herself K K who, of course, “speaks” with v replacing w, omits words like ‘a,’ ‘the’ and the odd ‘it,’ and says ‘darlink’ rather than darling and tries to recruit him. Various organisations offer him money over the phone, he is investigated by the IRS even though his pay-check from VIMNUT, which becomes Cyberk Corporation before he even joins, then later VEXXO, only one of a string of companies in the book constantly being renamed, while Fred’s British accent also leads to him continually being asked, “Why don’t you Brits bugger off out of Ireland?”
The whole is interspersed with background news items - most with ludicrously named reporters such as Aramis Whiteflow and Porthos Floog - on the killer targetting the Little Dorrit Restaurant chain. There is, too, an ongoing set of presidential sanity hearings. (If only, I hear you say.) There are embedded quotes from Bookends era Paul Simon songs and explicit references to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, whose fate the robot fears, especially after it is kidnapped and blamed for a death that took place during the incident.
Bugs is entertaining and clever, a perfect light read for lockdown or any other time, but sensitive souls should note there is a character described as a Negro who at one point says to a receptionist, “all you gotta do is put it in your ad: No niggers need apply.”
This novel has a Science-Fictional premise in that it postulates the creation of a thinking robot but is designed more as a satire on the contemporary corporate culture of the 1980s and of USian manners, usages (Tea tier tgo for “To eat here, or to go) and sexual mores. It also rather spectacularly blows out of the water Gene Wolfe’s first rule of writing: ‘never name a character Fred.’
Said Fred is Manfred Jones, an English writer who has come to New York at the behest of his agent only to find that the project he had been lured with does not exist. His wife, Susan, is disgusted by their cockroach infested rooms and soon flies back home. Fred applies for a job as a technical writer at VIMNUT Industries in Minneapolis. He is mistaken for someone else and taken on - as a software engineer - and the misapprehensions go on from there.
He is rescued from a cloud of gnats by a Soviet spy calling herself K K who, of course, “speaks” with v replacing w, omits words like ‘a,’ ‘the’ and the odd ‘it,’ and says ‘darlink’ rather than darling and tries to recruit him. Various organisations offer him money over the phone, he is investigated by the IRS even though his pay-check from VIMNUT, which becomes Cyberk Corporation before he even joins, then later VEXXO, only one of a string of companies in the book constantly being renamed, while Fred’s British accent also leads to him continually being asked, “Why don’t you Brits bugger off out of Ireland?”
The whole is interspersed with background news items - most with ludicrously named reporters such as Aramis Whiteflow and Porthos Floog - on the killer targetting the Little Dorrit Restaurant chain. There is, too, an ongoing set of presidential sanity hearings. (If only, I hear you say.) There are embedded quotes from Bookends era Paul Simon songs and explicit references to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, whose fate the robot fears, especially after it is kidnapped and blamed for a death that took place during the incident.
Bugs is entertaining and clever, a perfect light read for lockdown or any other time, but sensitive souls should note there is a character described as a Negro who at one point says to a receptionist, “all you gotta do is put it in your ad: No niggers need apply.”
August 18, 2021
Ymmärrän, että teos on ehkä turhan "hämärä" laajemmalle suosiolle, mutta minulle tämä on suoranainen kultti-kirja. Hetkittäin äärimmäisen hauska (vain Douglas Adams ja Stanislaw Lem ovat pystyneet samaan), kirjoittajan pilkkakirves pilkkoo juuri oikeita asioita ja pidän myös siitä miten nykymaailman silkka sattumanvaraisuus on esitetty. Vaikka mukana on turhia hahmoja ja harhapolkuja, annan silti täydet tähdet. Jo 30 vuotta sitten olin sitä mieltä, että tämä niin kaipaisi tulla filmatuksi, mutta valitettavasti filmatisointia ei vaan ole näkynyt.
June 19, 2020
Certainly not Sladek's strongest work but a highly amusing diversion nonetheless.
May 29, 2021
Darkly funny; The main character has the ill-fated optimism of Candide. I had already envisioned Fred Jones as Peter Sellers before it was mentioned in the story that he bore a resemblance.
August 17, 2015
This was one of the oddest books I ever read, even more so than The Man Who Was Thursday. I'm not even sure if the plot is all over the place, or if this book has no plot at all!
The way I read it, this book to me is above all a satire of modern society. There were some things that really made me smile, due to how true they are even after all the years since the book has been published. Though the focus is on the lunacies of american society in particular, I think many of these lunacies can be increasingly found in almost any so called 'modern' country (unfortunately).
Don't look for much depth in the characters either, they seem to be more like caricatures than real people, and given the tone of the book I really believe it was intended as such.
I don't know what to think of this book overall, not the story nor the ending, hence I don't have a clue to who I'd recommend it to. People who'd like a truly unpredictable book perhaps? Maybe someday I'll reread it, and come to understand it better (or maybe there's nothing more to understand here).
The way I read it, this book to me is above all a satire of modern society. There were some things that really made me smile, due to how true they are even after all the years since the book has been published. Though the focus is on the lunacies of american society in particular, I think many of these lunacies can be increasingly found in almost any so called 'modern' country (unfortunately).
Don't look for much depth in the characters either, they seem to be more like caricatures than real people, and given the tone of the book I really believe it was intended as such.
I don't know what to think of this book overall, not the story nor the ending, hence I don't have a clue to who I'd recommend it to. People who'd like a truly unpredictable book perhaps? Maybe someday I'll reread it, and come to understand it better (or maybe there's nothing more to understand here).
July 26, 2009
Nice story, with some really funny and deranged parts. More of a ligth reading, but still worth it.
May 13, 2011
Being from Minneapolis, it was interesting to read about an Englishman's misinterpretation of the Twin Cities, but the satire could have taken place anywhere.
It was a fun read.
It was a fun read.
July 8, 2016
Oikeastaan melko hyvä, välillä liian absurdi tosin. Mustaa huumoria, päähenkilö joutui alvariinsa hankaliin tilanteisiin. Kuvattiin hyvin jenkkiyhteiskunnan typeryyttä.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews