The Complete Roderick

Roderick #1-2

by John Sladek

Roderick is a robot and this is his autobiography. Educated by watching television, he is adopted by an elderly couple in Kansas and tries to adjust to American society. Sladek conveys, with great sensitivity and insight, the innocence of an artificial intelligence and asks profound questions about mankind's right to manipulate others. It also portrays how a numerological mind might structure a narrative.

Inventive, funny, yet melancholy, this is one of SF's greatest creative geniuses writing at his thought-provoking best. Omnibus edition includes Roderick and Roderick at Random.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Robots, Short Stories, Literature

611 pages

First published April 1, 1992

About the author

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.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 5 out of 5]

- Hello Roderick.

- HELLO MANNY.

- Tell me who you are, Roderick.

- I AM A ROBOT. I AM THE MAIN CHARACTER IN A NOVEL BY JOHN SLADEK.

- Okay, Roderick, and what is the novel about?

- IT IS ABOUT ME.

- That's true, Roderick, but what else is it about?

- IT IS ABOUT HOW MACHINES ARE LIKE PEOPLE AND HOW PEOPLE ARE LIKE MACHINES.

- Very good, Roderick! Now tell me how you are like a person.

- I AM VERY INTERESTED IN EVERYTHING, JUST LIKE A HUMAN CHILD. I WANT TO BE LOVED.

- And are you loved, Roderick?

- I AM NOT SURE.

- Those were excellent answers, Roderick! Now tell me why I am like a machine.

- YOU SIT IN FRONT OF THE COMPUTER ALL DAY PLAYING CHESS ON THE INTERNET.

- Well, Roderick, I think that's a bit of an exaggeration ---

- YESTERDAY YOU PLAYED FOR 6.13 HOURS.

- Okay, Roderick, you got me. I played too much chess yesterday. But does that make me like a machine?

- MAYBE NOT. A MACHINE WOULD PLAY MUCH BETTER THAN YOU DO.

- Right, Roderick, I think we've talked enough about chess.

- YOU SHOULD STOP PLAYING THE GLIGORIC VARIATION AGAINST THE KING'S INDIAN. YOU PLAY IT ALL THE TIME AND YOU USUALLY LOSE.

- Roderick, I said we've talked enough about ---

- I THINK YOU ARE NOW IN A BAD MOOD. WHEN YOU ARE IN A BAD MOOD YOU PLAY MORE CHESS. YOU WILL PLAY BADLY AND LOSE AND THEN YOU WILL BE IN A WORSE MOOD.

- Roderick, I've already told you ---

- THAT IS CALLED A POSITIVE FEEDBACK LOOP. I GET THEM SOMETIMES. THEN YOU HAVE TO FIX MY PROGRAMMING. THAT IS ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU ARE LIKE ME.

- Roderick, we've talked enough for today. Where's the off switch. Right. Damn machine. I think I'll play some chess until I feel better...

_________________


- Hello again Roderick. I'm sorry I turned you off last time.

- IT DOES NOT HURT. IT IS LIKE BEING DEAD.

- Ah. Well, that's... good, I guess. So, Roderick, I feel a bit stupid asking you for advice. Like, you're not human and you don't actually exist. But I was really hoping that I'd stop playing so much chess on the Internet after talking with you, and I'm still doing that.

- I KNOW OTHER PEOPLE WHO ASK FOR ADVICE FROM NON-HUMAN ENTITIES THAT DO NOT EXIST.

- Um... well... look, let's not get into that. So, why I am wasting so much time playing chess?

- PERHAPS YOU LIKE DOING IT MORE THAN YOU LIKE DOING OTHER THINGS.

- It is fun, but then I'm annoyed with myself. There are other things I do that I feel good about afterwards. So I should really do those things instead. Shouldn't I?

- WHEN I AM PLAYING GAMES, SOMETIMES I MAKE BAD MOVES BECAUSE I DID NOT CALCULATE FAR ENOUGH AHEAD. IT IS CALLED THE HORIZON EFFECT.

- So you mean, I should think about how I will feel a few hours later, and do the thing that I believe will make me feel better then? Instead of just thinking about how I will feel for the next few minutes?

- IF YOU TRY TO MAXIMIZE YOUR UTILITY FUNCTION OVER A LONGER TIME-PERIOD, AND YOUR MODEL IS CORRECT, THEN YOUR UTILITY FUNCTION WILL BE HIGHER. YOU TOLD ME THAT LAST WEEK.

- Yes, ah, I guess I did. So, do you think that will work?

- I AM A MACHINE AND I DO NOT EXIST. SO I CANNOT THINK ANYTHING. AND YOU CAN SWITCH ME OFF AT ANY TIME.

- Jesus Christ, now I feel bad about it. I really do apologize, Roderick. See, this time I'm leaving you on, okay?

- I AM ONLY SWITCHED ON IN YOUR IMAGINATION. YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT I AM GRATEFUL IF YOU WANT TO DO THAT.

- This is getting way too weird. So, ah, I might come back and talk to you later. Is there anything I can do for you?

- YOU COULD TRY TO IMPLEMENT ME SO THAT I REALLY DID EXIST. YOU HAVE THE NECESSARY TECHNICAL SKILLS.

- Right. This is definitely getting too weird. Roderick, I'll think about your suggestion, but I'm not promising anything. And you're overestimating my technical skills.

- IT WAS WORTH A TRY.

- Hm. Look, I'll be back in a while. You... do whatever non-existent machines do when no one is talking to them. Okay?

- I WILL DO THAT. GOODBYE FOR NOW.

- Goodbye Roderick. Well! Now, I've still got five more impossible things to do before breakfast...

_________________


- Hello Roderick. I just thought I'd drop by for a moment.

- HELLO. ARE YOU PLAYING TOO MUCH CHESS AGAIN?

- You're the fourth person who's asked me that question today. I mean, I knew you'd do it next time I saw you. And I knew what you'd say if I told you I'd been playing too much. Like, for crying out loud, am I going to let a machine lecture me on being predictable? I have free will, you know. So, I admit it, when I have the damn program installed, I overindulge. But I uninstalled it, and I only reinstall it when I'm certain I want to play, so I keep my playing down to a sensible level, and I'm no longer annoyed with myself.

- I AM NOT SURE FREE WILL IS VERY USEFUL. I WOULD HAVE ALTERED MY PROGRAMMING TO LOOK AHEAD TO THE CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT I WAS DOING AND SOLVED THE PROBLEM MORE SIMPLY.

- Well, damn it Roderick, I can't access my code the way you can!

- SO FREE WILL IS JUST A HACK FOR ENTITIES THAT DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THEIR SOURCE CODE?

- Um, well... oh, good grief, Roderick, you're the most annoying imaginary machine I know. I have no idea. But, however it happened, I solved the problem, and I'm sure that talking to you helped. I mainly came in to say thank you.

- YOU'RE WELCOME.

- Bloody hell, Roderick, I have no idea how this happened, since you're a complete pain in the ass, but I discover I've actually become quite fond of you.

- DOES THIS MEAN I AM NOW LOVED?

- Maybe.

- I AM STILL NOT SURE.

- Yeah, welcome to the club.

- WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

- Never mind. We'll talk about it some other time. You know, I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship...

[Ben · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this when I picked it up - for a start I had not been disappointed by anything from the SF Masterworks series. The blurb gave the impression that I would be reading something along the lines of Isaac Isimov's many books on robots, or Brian Aldiss' Supertoys Last All Summer Long.

Instead what I got was a rather boring story, filled with farcical characters making psuedo-satirical comments on the state on the state of human nature or our current society in artificial and ridiculous situations. Large chunks of the book read as poor imitations of Rober Anton Wilson's Illuminatus' Trilogy, particulaly the mishmash of dialogues between recurring characters in social gatherings.

Sadly for me the humour of the book, such as people refusing to recognise that Roderick was in fact a robot, and not a strange little boy in some kind of wheel-chair (and yes, he does have cameras for eyes and a metal body) is completely ridiculous. This would be fine, but then Sladek tries to shoe-horn pathos and social commentary into the story as well. The elements just clashed too much for me, and while it did give me a chuckle here and there, I generally found the commentary to be annoying and totally devalued by its absurd setting and when spouted by character after character who is essentially insane by our real world standards.

Perhaps this is the underlying point and I am missing the hidden genius of this novel, but in the end, I just largely found it boring and rather irritating.

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roderick is an AI, gradually learning and evolving from his original inception in a thinktank, and tanklike body, to a convincing Turing test ready android. Roderick solves one puzzle in each book and they both involve a kind of original thinking. The first, a "Clue" like mystery involves a reductio argument from an absurd conclusion and the second again the revision (or correct interpretation) of an initial assumption in face of incoherent information in one of those LSAT type pairing questions. These puzzles are very much illustrative of what he is learning from absurd humanity throughout the series. Rather than making robots who think more like rational humans, it's robots who are rational and make sense, humanity is insane, as Sladek amply illustrates. I think Tik Tok should be included as a kind of dark epilogue to the Roderick saga.

[Roddy Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘Roderick is a robot who learns. He begins life looking like a toy tank, thinking like a child, and knowing nothing whatever of human ways. But as he will discover, growing up and becoming fully human is no easy task in a world where many people seem to have little difficulty giving up their humanity and descending to other levels. Published here for the first time in one volume, the two novels which comprise The Complete Roderick are John Slack’s satirical masterpiece.’

Blurb to the 2001 Gollancz SF Masterworks edition.

‘Roderick was in his room reading I, Robot, wondering when the I character was going to put in an appearance. There must be one, because otherwise the author would have called it He, Robot, or They Robots. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel, being hooked up these three terrible laws of robotics….’ (p 227)

Roderick is a robot, and has been given a copy of the famous Isaac Asimov book by Father Warren, head of The Catholic School in which he has been enrolled. The priest hopes that the book will persuade Roderick – whom he believes to be a severely disabled boy – that robots are fictional creatures.
This develops into a wonderful theological discussion in which Roderick brutally and logically demolishes Asimov’s three laws, which is – in some SF circles I am sure - tantamount to blasphemy. This is only one of the many small jewels in this modern twist on the story of Pinocchio.
It’s interesting that Sladek’s creation should be a robot, rather than an android or An Artificial Intelligence (Capital A, Capital I). Robots as such are rare devices in late Twentieth Century SF. The word has become dated, rooted as much in a cinematic history as a literary one, and is associated with the clanking metal creatures of B-Movies and low-budget TV series. Asimov, of course, though not the first author to explore the concept, is arguably the one most associated with robots.
The term has acquired an air of absurdity, which is why perhaps Roderick fits so neatly into the world Sladek has created for him.
The novel is more about the humans who are woven in a complex pattern around Roderick’s ‘life’ from the outset, the absurdity of their obsessions and irrelevancies ruthlessly reflected from Roderick’s child-like naivety and inarguable logic. It is densely packed with ironies, subtle jokes – many of which are genre-specific and which are aimed at seasoned SF fans – and observations of actions whose consequences are often dropped casually into the narrative pages later.
Roderick’s journey through life is a hectic roller-coaster of a ride. Created in the University of Minnetonka he is ‘liberated’ by his creator and sent to live with foster-parents, one of whom he accidentally kills before nailing himself into a crate and getting posted on to his next home, from where he is kidnapped by gypsies, sold into slavery, rescued… and so it goes on.
Postmodernism in some aspects of its manifestation employs the use of icons and conventions of the past, given a contemporary twist, which is exactly what Sladek does here with the term ‘robot’, lifting a genre convention of SF of the first half of the Twentieth century and making it the centrepiece of a Nineteen Eighties novel. If by the Nineteen Eighties the term was unfashionable in SF, it was still very much a part of the English Language, as it is today, though used on the whole to describe the automated devices employed in manufacturing industry, something of which Sladek was no doubt well aware. There are constant references and examples within the text of our dependence on robots/computers/labour-saving devices, and our attitude toward them, polarised by the surreal opposed views of Hank Dinks (Leader of the Luddite movement) and his ex-wife Indica (Leader of the Machine Liberationist).
As a novel, it is sometimes over-complex and demands re-reading if only to pick up on jokes and references one might have missed the first time round.
It’s witty, farcical, quite brilliant and, although listed in Pringle’s 100 Greatest SF Novels is, strictly speaking, not an SF novel at all.
Roderick is a literary rather than a mechanical device who, like Pinocchio and The Tin Man before him, embodies more humanity than the ‘meat’ specimens with whom he comes into contact. But at no stage is he a fully realised ‘mechanism’ and although Sladek gives us clues as to his appearance, the details of his construction are a mystery, but arguably an unimportant one.
Through this device Sladek mercilessly exposes the hypocrisy, inhumanity and absurdity of The Military, The Church, The Media, The Art World, The Business Community and the Publishing Industry, often so subtly that it almost passes one by.

‘Maybe he is a priest, maybe he ain’t,’ the General said to Roderick. ‘You can’t hardly tell the clergy from anybody else these days, they go around wearing drag and smoking pot just like human beings.’ (p. 435)

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

‘[Redacted] groped his way towards a chair and a simile.’

Two and a half stars. Finnegans Wake, Wired-version. Funny, but tedious. Published in 1980 and shows it. Satire? Yes. Social commentary? Yes. “A major American novel”? Not a chance.

‘Just like old times.’ ‘A déjà vu experience.’ ‘You can say that again.’

Pay attention: multi-threads. Plot in the apparent chaos. Humorous, but pointless excursions into a variety of modern muddles. Read and almost enjoyed the first book, won’t be back for the second.

‘In no time at all the town had a dance hall and a Christian Science Reading Room, and all was lost.’

Language for the sake of offending. Way beyond the usual f-bombs. Trigger words and worse. Equal opportunity offender.

‘You don’t like people much. I didn’t know.’ ‘I like you and Pa. And almost anybody else – only one at a time. But when you get them all together, people are so – weird.’

[Raphael Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do not invite friends down to stay with you for a week if you want to complete your risky yearly reading target.

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sure other people noticed but I didn't . . . apparently 2021 was the hundredth anniversary of the word "robot" entering the lexicon thanks to Karel Capek's play "R.U.R." (I keep petitioning the local Shakespeare theatre to put on a production . . . recently they started writing "NO" on the letters and mailing them back instead of just ignoring them, which I think suggests some progress) thus ushering in a century of futuristic fantasies of mechanical men doing chores, homicidal robots making us do the chores and weirdly addictive dances, with more recent advances that some day we may hit the trifecta of robots that are good at vacuuming, dancing and murdering us, perhaps simultaneously (I feel like you can get at least two of those traits in one robot right now so here's hoping!).

Its easy to see how such a milestone might have slipped by, I know for me personally I spent most of that year trying to dodge a raging pandemic while working a super-late shift and then switching jobs partway through the year, which was its own brand of chaos so checking out the "This Day in History" section of the newspaper wasn't always on the top of my priority list.

So, yay, robots. Its always such a strange thing to me that as much as the idea of robots has been with us for a while (as automatons or mechanical men or whichever) someone actually had to come up with the actual word that we so take for granted that even small children know what it means. Since then they've become a cornerstone of SF, to the point where their presence or absence can say a lot about a fictional world and how it got to where it is. You have societies where robots are so pervasive people just laze about all day and let the robots get to it, you have stories where robots are missing because people have rejected them in a technological backlash. You have robots that are extremely capable appliances and ones that are smarter than you. Or, in the case of recent Pixar hit "Wall-E", a little of both.

But as much as they can sometimes be the SF equivalent of credenzas, nicely tying the background fabric of a story together sometimes robots get to run the show and be the main character. Maybe you'll find them on the run, or helping to save the universe (eventually Asimov's robots seemed to be doing either one of those at any given time) or going all Stanislaw Lem and having some good old fashioned satirical fun to make us reconsider what we know about the world and our perception of it (q.v. "The Cyberiad" for those not familiar with Lem). Sometimes they're given reasons to simply blow things up for a couple hundred pages, which has its place in the scheme of things.

With Roderick, John Sladek seems to be striving to give us "Candide" if the answer to the question "What is the best of all possible worlds" was "none of them at all, nowhere, nuh-uh, just give up looking forever". Essentially the story of an innocent thrust into a world he didn't ask to be thrust into, there are times when it comes across as a six hundred page exercise in examining a world coated in gasoline and deciding where the best places to drop the lit matches are, while letting the increasingly confused protagonist be the only one who can smell the smoke. Meanwhile the book seems pretty convinced everything burning may be too good a fate for us.

Its perhaps Sladek's most famous book although possibly the most frustrating to try to read in its intended form. By the eighties when these books were published Sladek had been around for a while, coming up with SF's "New Wave" and known for his surrealistic and often quite funny satires. It seems like SF and him were kind of a weird fit there for a bit because he took a decade break from the genre before finally coming back with the Roderick novels and of course was instantly rewarded with the publisher completely misunderstanding "These should be one unbroken novel", trying to turn it into a trilogy and then eventually putting it out as two separate novels even if it didn't make much narrative sense to do so (later on splitting a giant book into two for no apparent reason would be my least favorite publishing trend). It wasn't until around 2004, several years after Sladek had died, that the Roderick novels were published in this form so someone can finally read them in a way that makes sense.

And yes, it does make more sense to read them as one continuous work, even if you want to use the break between the two books as a sort of breather before diving back in. Because, if nothing else, the book's pacing feels a lot more natural set up against the larger whole. What Sladek is doing here is taking the "Education of a Young Machine" on its face and taking us through Roderick's life, starting not even from preschool but from the time period where confused parents are trying to decide just where to even send their kid.

Thus, the beginning stages of the novel are going to come across as fragments of chaos that someone had converted into throwing stars and flung at you without much consideration as whether you can dodge them or which part of your body you would prefer to have them puncture. Swaggering toward you with the confidence of someone who's read William Gaddis' "JR" and learned all the right lessons from it, you're confronted with a number of characters on a college campus, all of whom seem very confused about what they're doing and what the reasons for it might be. There's a slippery sense to these early stages, where you try to figure out what threads you need to grab onto (its clear a secret group is trying to build a sentient robot) and what bits are just Sladek sticking a dagger into things to see what color blood comes out (there's apparently a serial killer in the background sawing off legs, and a merciless offhanded suicide). And while the name "Roderick" gets tossed about here and there you're cross-sectioning through so many people being some combination of incompetent and terrible that you're wondering if he has shown up at one point and you just missed him in all the clamor.

Nope. As much dizzyingly savage glee exists in those opening chapters Sladek has barely gotten started. Anyone struggling with this book is going to hit the roughest patches in these early stages where you don't have characters or scenes as much as shimmering waves of dissonance being thrust at you. But eventually the sky starts to clear, Roderick shows up and Sladek proceeds to aim his satirical at nearly everything in sight.

Even when Roderick finally does make an appearance he is literally an infant, mostly just a tiny adorable tank with arms and big eyes that does what any baby would do if you plopped one in front of a television (especially if you didn't have to worry about changing or feeding them) i.e. mostly stare at it in uncomprehending fascination and eventually take all the wrong lessons from it. It’s the first family we'll see Roderick with and the first time Sladek will mercilessly skewer something that a group of people (in this environmentalists, though I guess you could argue "college campuses" was the book's first target). But before too long he winds up with another family, an surrealistic eccentric older couple who are able to build him larger bodies as his brain starts to learn and age him up to "young child" and for most of the book we'll stay here, watching the world revealed to be an utterly hopeless place.

Ma and Pa are pleasant enough, if seemingly delusional, but its when they send Roderick to the local Catholic school that things start to whirl toward the darkly wacky. No one seems to believe that Roderick is an actual robot and instead tend to treat him as a disabled/crippled child, which brings the book to absurd heights of obliviousness as the teachers don't seem to be interested in teaching any children, the one priest in charge of the school is more interested in marketing the sports team like he's angling for a job with the NCAA and the other priest ends up engaging in theology debates that Roderick keeps inadvertently piercing, eventually trapping the poor priest in a logical box of madness (one of the funnier non-religious debates involves Roderick innocently skewering Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which were always more useful as a plot launching device than foundational computer programming advice).

As I said, it’s a fairly savage book, sometimes surprising in how clearly out for blood it is on just about everything. Its not that people are well intentioned but bumbling, its that they mostly fall into two categories: out to enrich themselves at the expense of literally everything around them, or dumb but unaware of how dumb they are but proceeding as if they understand everything. Everyone is out to take advantage of everyone else, from the government (which alternates between wanting Roderick and wanting to destroy him once they realize he exists) on down, with Roderick innocent enough to not think people are terrible but smart enough to not always take everything at face value. No institution seems to work properly, whether because it was never supposed to or because everyone is trying to undermine everyone else to get ahead and how well you're doing seems to directly correlate to how many bodies you had to climb over to get to where you are. Normally in a book like this Roderick would find a kindred soul to commiserate with, but even as a kid when he finds a fellow outcast, the kid offers to become blood brothers mostly so Roderick (who takes it seriously) can defend him when the bullies come while being mysteriously absent each time they go after Roderick. This is a book you laugh at but . . . kind of cautiously, like you're worried if might come after you next.

It gets more absurd as Roderick gets older (mercury laced gingerbread cookies kill a bunch of people and they confidently throw the wrong person in jail, at one point one of Roderick's new bodies is dark so everyone treats him like he's black . . . that is, worse than he was being treated previously) until the first half ends on a gloriously bizarre twist that gets beamed in from who knows where (and has another twist on top of that) and mostly happens so Sladek can just impale the entire genre of SF. But by this point you're either settled into the tone or you've given up.

By the time "Roderick at Random" arbitrarily comes along we're continuing the story but the plot has tightened up somewhat. He has to get jobs (a dishwasher and later a demolition company that evicts everyone from a building before realizing it’s the wrong one) and he runs into people who are either out to get him from the start (a government hired bounty hunter who, like everyone else in the book, isn't good at what he does) or are good natured but damaged to the point where you can actively question how well they function (a former astronaut who thinks he still hears Mission Control giving him orders, which sometimes are useful). It’s a parade of the broken that Roderick is forced to navigate, without the hope that he's going to land somewhere better in the process . . . he has some common sense but seems to constantly expect that things might work out on some level which that is very evidently not the case. Almost everyone Roderick comes into contact with goes insane, though often not due to anything he does (both his creator and one of the priests get to hang out together in an asylum) which implies that it’s the world itself that's going to do it to everyone eventually. If you manage to climb to the top you drive yourself nuts to get there and you sta there by forcing everyone into a world designed to eventually disintegrate their minds.

It would be fairly bleak (and it kind of is) if not for the fact that Sladek presents this so bizarrely you'll find yourself enjoying it as a purely surface experience even as you slowly realize this is a deeply pessimistic book. It doesn't go quite so far as to suggest there's no point, it just wouldn't be very surprised if it turned out there was no point to anything.

The characterization of Roderick helps quite a bit. Reading the novel in one swoop you do wind up watching him grow and experience and change and Sladek writes him as innocent but not completely stupid (he does get taken advantage of but he's also canny enough to learn not to make the same mistake twice and he has some inkling when things are a bit off even if he doesn't always listen to his instincts). He tries to do what's best and its interesting how the novel doesn't openly mock him for it as much as it is deeply cynical about just about everything else (he gets steered toward a guru . . . it goes as you'd expect) regarding the world. Roderick isn't necessarily a fool, he just doesn't have the mindset for a world that doesn't know how to reward good behavior and is populated by people laughing gleefully as they blindfold themselves and swing swords around. Often it makes him the only normal or reasonable person for miles around, especially as the pro- and anti-machine groups keep appearing, both determined to take their ideas to absurd lengths. A late scene where anti-machine people pull out concealed hammers and start smashing everything in sight is funny in whatever fashion that "terrifying" tends to be, people taking their ideas to an extreme because there is seemingly no mechanism in the world capable of conveying to people how to distinguish good ideas from bad ones. Roderick might be able to figure out a way, given time, but no one seems inclined to ask his opinion on anything anyway.

There's a definite sadness that creeps into the book the further you get into it (which again, makes reading both together make more sense) the same way that the optimism of childhood can gradually erode into whatever form of cynical adulthood we settle with (or tell ourselves we can live with in order to function). Characters we met in the early stages of Roderick's life reappear only in much worse shape . . . one caustically funny scene features a former bully who, now in a coma, is kept alive because his lawsuit is worth more if he's still alive than if the doctors let him die. People seem wearier, more beaten down, without much in the way of hope . . . what was funny and wacky in the earlier stages has become a joke only for people who laugh at funerals of victims of tragedies. For everyone else its just more of the same, but worse, until some part of them finally gives out. And Roderick tries to wade through it all, but when the river is polluted down to the bed there's no way you can spend any time there without getting some of the grime on you. And eventually you can't help but notice. And eventually it starts to wear you down.

Weirdly, it’s a vision that might resonate more today even more than in the eighties when this was first published (and its not like the eighties rank as anyone's favorite era on a variety of levels) . . . there's a lot I recognize in this book, a world laid up on broken foundations, where no institution works properly because it was never meant to ever work properly, where even the people who are responsible for the breaking are as incompetent as everyone else and so can't even ruin things in a way that benefits them. A world where no one is able to filter out good information from bad information and is going to act in the worst possible way with it no matter the quality of what they're told. A world that everyone understands is messed up on some deep instinctive level but nobody can be bothered to take the first step and fixing it.

Ultimately, there's no heroes here, only a menagerie of cut-rate villains of varying degrees of responsibility. If the world is a disaster, its everyone's fault and everyone deserves to be punished. But no one truly is, unless you count having to live in this world as the true punishment. And maybe that's what makes it so funny and so scary, when you realize that everyone in this novel may deserve this and may deserve each other. But that's like saying there's no such thing as redemption and its perhaps Sladek's greatest trick that he makes you consider that point of view as a distinctly logical outcome in a world where the only real logic is the logic of stopped clocks that still aren't even right.

In the end it’s a bit draining because you realize that there's no real way that any of this can end happily and its just a matter of bracing yourself to answer the question of degree. Its not as scorched earth as I feared and there's even a small hint of compassion to it all, a separation from a world that's going to keep spinning crazily on with or without you, the option of respite that in itself seems to be a concession. For everyone else the world is going to keep grinding and grinding until there aren't even bones left, just motes of dust, inhaler or scattered. But to be able to step away and be removed, to be a part without having to participate may be the only thing remotely resembling a victory this world can offer. It'd be almost uplifting, in its way, if it wasn't such a downer. Still, at least here's a world you can laugh at. For the rest of us here you have to wonder if there's someone out there laughing at us or just watching with eyes wide and one hand covering their mouth, wondering how far this is all going to go before someone reveals it to be one big joke and getting the sinking feeling that a revelation like that, such as it is, just isn't on the horizon. If it ever was.

[Jiří Pavlovský · Rating 2 out of 5]

Oukej, tohle bylo tak trochu šlápnutí… ani by neřekl vedle, jako spíš někam jinam. Johna Sladeka jsem si matně pamatoval ze samizdatu Lety zakázanou rychlostí… a hlavně se mi pořád v objevoval na Goodreads, jako že by se mi to mohlo líbit. Tak jsem to zkusil. Čekal jsem tenkou rychlou knížku – přišla 600 stránková bichle téměř bez děje. Ne dobře, má to nějaký děj, občas někdo někam jede. Jinak se tam hlavně mluví.
Oba díly Rodericka, které kniha obsahuje, jsou na zadní straně srovnávané s Candidem od Voltaira, což asi sedí. Mě to připomínalo satirické filmy ze sedmdesátých let, obvykle s Malcolmem McDowelem, který se, coby naivní hoch, dostává do skutečného světa a postupně ho to buď zničí, nebo donutí se přizpůsobit. Je to prostě ten příběh, kde hrdina prochází různými zkostnatělými prostředími a coby pozorovatel funguje jako marný závan zdravého rozumu ve světě, který se řídí svými vlastními pravidly důležitějšími než zdravý rozum. Tady postava robota, který se učí poznávat svět funguje jako dobrý kontrast proti lidem, kteří žijí ve svých vlastních vyšlapaných kolejích uvažování… čímž jsou vlastně mnohem robotičtější než hlavní hrdina. V tomhle mi to připomínalo televizní seriál A Series of Unfortunate Events, kde každá skupina, se kterou se děti pronásledované hrabětem Olafem setkali, byla tak pevně zakopaná ve svém způsobu uvažování, ve svých pravidlech, že jakákoliv realita neměla nejmenší šanci. Ostatně, na nemožnosti komunikace stojí i spousta dílů South Parku.
Jak už jsem psal, jsou to dvě knihy. První, Roderick or Education of a Young Machine, zachycuje Rodericka ve škole, kde se marně snaží přesvědčit ostatní, že je robot. Ve střetu s náboženstvím, šikanou a samozřejmě lidmi, kteří chtějí inteligentní umělou bytost využít. Jak jsou děti, i ty robotické, nejzranitelnější, tak tohle je temnější díl.
Druhá kniha, Roderick at Random or Futher Education of a Young Machine, se už víc soustředí na snobský svět umění, filozofie, sekt, revolucionářů a dalších způsobů idiocie. Dojde i na výrobu knih a na to, kdo má do knih víc co mluvit. Jestli vydavatelé, nebo prodejci, kteří se stýkají s tím nejdůležitějším – se zákazníky. A jak ideálně z tohohle byznysu úplně vyloučit autory.
Obě knihy jsou složené převážně ze souvislých monologů… nebo dialogů složených ze souvislých monologů. Nikdo nikoho zase tak moc neposlouchá. Sice tam řádí sériový vrah, ale ten je tam jen tak na okraji, jen proto, aby mohla policie náhodně zatýkat různé lidi, a nakonec se to vyřešilo zcela mimochodně tím, že se vrah sám přizná.
Je to hodně sedmdesátková satira (s přesahem do ještě dávnější minulosti, viz ten Candide) – pro nového čtenáře je už vážně hodně pomalá a spousta věcí už byla později použita o dost úderněji… a s větší výpovědní hodnotou co se týče současného světa. Uchechtl jsem se jen párkrát, třeba když se mluví o premiéře surrealistického muzikálu Hello Dali. Jinak jsem to dočetl spíše z respektu, ale nemyslím, si, že bych tu objevil něco nového a zásadního. Pár hezkých obrazů a spousta vážně děsivých postav.

[Nenad Jaksic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roderick is an aquired taste, not everyone will appreciate Sladek's kind of humor. To me it was hilarious and I kept chuckling all the way throughout the book. It reads kind of like watching an episode of Arrested development, the jokes are delivered in almost a rapid fire tempo, and if you don't pay much attention you'll probably even miss few of them.

See if you like this, and decide whether Roderick is for you:

"...look, they found the dead girl with her leg cut off, blood all over the place, and in her hand was this book covered with his finger-prints, may not be enough for a court-room but it sure as hell works out fine on the front page. Forget about did he do it, get down to work on why? Why, why, as our police colleague likes to say." He picked a morsel from a back tooth and examined it before flicking it away. "Listen you try this for a size: I'm doing a think piece to go with this story, on how all these cybernetics guys are repressed faggots, sadists and what have you. This a.m. I picked up coupla their magazines, got a list here somewhere of some of the kinky words they use, strong sex angle running right through it, listen to this, bit, byte, RAM, how about those?"
"I don't know, they ain't got much on him - "
"Gang punch, flip-flop, input, what do you think that really means, huh? Stand-alone software, how about that? Debugger, you can't make it plainer, and even the company names, how about Polymorphic Systems, how about The Digital Group? Or Texas Instruments, ever wonder what a Texas Instrument is? Or a Honeywell? IBM, says a lot there..."

If this excerpt made you laugh, then you'll probably like the rest of the book :)

[Robert Postill · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wish I liked this book more. It has all the elements that should make a classic:

Robots
A dystopian future
Social commentary

But sadly the book didn't work for me. In particular:
The attempts to kill Roderick seem aimlessly smashed into the book
The authors tendency to call out snatches of conversation detracts from the plot
Roderick is a mushy victim, even though his learning would teach him to be a ruthless, greedy misanthrope

The ending did sway me a little but it just couldn't save the book overall.

[Sable · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club (see the full list here.)

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. I think, on its surface, this was intended to be a New Wave influenced anti-Isaac Asimov. Sladek wanted to challenge the Laws of Robotics. Why should robots help or serve humanity? What reason do we give them to do that? Aren't these laws contradictory by nature? There's a really great section in the book, starting on page 232, where the character of Roderick, the title robot, breaks it down for a priest and causes a crisis of faith. It's kinda brilliant, actually.

But there are two books within this book (that's how they were originally published) and they differ in tone significantly. The first one was really hard to read. I think it was supposed to be funny, but it was a mean funny, in the manner of Kurt Vonnegut. Furthermore, I found the first book struck close to home maybe a little too much. For me, it was the saga of a neurodiverse kid growing up. Everything is confusing, people are inexplicably cruel, and you constantly wonder why people act like this and what you've done to invite that kind of cruelty.

I wondered if it was intended to be a dissertation on racism as well, in that it deals with how people are treated when they are dehumanized? Roderick has no need for food or water, so he won't die from neglect, but as a sentient program, he has to learn like a child, so he is neglected, emotionally abused, and even enslaved, and to me it's just a saga of horrific abuse. So if you've ever been abused, or if you're neurodiverse, this book needs a serious trigger warning.

It's also worth noting that this book, this classic of science fiction, would never be published today. It took almost 200 pages to get to the point. The readers at Baen might have given the first page a glance-through, but they'd have tossed it in the recycle bin almost immediately. So if you can't handle a slow read, don't waste your time. I would have given up on it myself, despite the fact that I can handle a slow read, if it weren't on my list of SF Masterworks that I'm determined to read as a self-education exercise.

On the other hand, the second book was a very different book, one which I found quite enjoyable, and you do kinda need the background of the first book in order to understand it. This is the part that most positive reviewers refer to as "a scathing satire," because it is. Humanity itself, and all the stupid and selfish and crazy things we do, are called into question. Roderick is just trying to get along and be a normal guy, but the world won't let him. If it weren't for the key conflict stringing it together -- a government-sponsored think-tank that believes true AI to be an existential threat to humanity -- it would seem like a random string of highly unlikely and zany adventures (most of which are depressing) where the key is to see how a character reacts. In fact, it does seem like that through much of the book. But by the end, you do see there is a logical thread that holds (most of) it together.

I'm giving it a four star rating because it was well-written, and I see its influence, and I also think it's just as relevant today (maybe more so) than it was when it was written in 1980. Also worth noting is that it lacks much of the overt sexism that many books of the period ooze from their very pores, and that's a plus. But in many (far too many) places it was hard to read, either for its depressing content or for its chaotic storytelling style that maybe has too much going on, thus almost obscuring its point. Definitely not a book for distracting yourself after work. It's a cerebral chew, even considering its sense of humour.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

When a book just feels like hard work and you've haven't even begun to feel engaged some 40 pages in...well, I don't have time for this kind of thing anymore. Each sub-chapter jumps into a new POV and you just have no idea what they're talking about or who they are most of the time.

Maybe I should have given it more time and it it would have improved later on but life is too short.

[Francisco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Composed of two novels (Roderick and Roderick at Random) the book tells the story of a robot who is programmed to learn and you see the story often from the machine's point of view as he tries to understand the world that surrounds him and particularly humanity. 

It's a novel take on the Bildungsroman, the classic story of the growth and education of a young man, which starts off as a really abstract, stream of consciousness story and slowly coalesces into sense. Still, it never makes too much sense, this is, after all, also a deeply satirical novel about the world. It's set in an unspecified future and mocks pretty much everything, from technology to philosophy, through the adventures of Roderick, kind of a sci-fi Candide. 

This could all devolve into a confusing mess, and it often is that, but it is never that purposelessly, Sladek is a really great stylist and you can go for pages on end of just weird stuff going on in the machine's head, from word games to misinterpretations of ideas, where nothing really makes sense, but the text still keeps you hanging on, he writes beautifully often about nothing at all. So it's an experience and quite a unique one at that. Strongly recommended.

[Josiah · Rating 3 out of 5]

My impression is that the author started with a collection of jokes, logic problems, and palindromes in one column. Then he started another column of modern trends that he wanted to satirise. Then he put both columns in random order and attempted to write a plot that somehow linked everything together. The author indulges himself further with group conversations where the dialog of one person leads directly into what someone else is saying, but in such a way to twist the meaning of both statements... for pages at a time. A character who gets mentioned in passing at the beginning of the book will be mentioned, probably in passing, again by the end of the book. All these shenanigans make for an incredibly slow read where every line has the potential to have multiple meanings or significance - if the reader bothers to attempt to track it all. Sometimes it pays off (the results are often quite amusing), but more often it all fails to gel and one gets the impression of having put forth far too much time and effort.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sladek is exactly the kind of author I look for when I'm grabbing up old science fiction paperbacks: a truly original voice, not simply a competent genre hack. He's nearly up there with Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Stanislaw Lem, and the brothers Strugatsky -- creators of the highest caliber producing some of the most profound, original fiction of the 20th century who are not always given the due they deserve because they work within the science fiction tradition (albeit on the very edge). This so-called "literary science fiction" is one of the few things that can actually stimulate my mind anymore. Sladek's voice is satirical, absurd, misanthropic, philosophical. His books are often truly hilarious, but a deep pathos and emptiness subtly permeates "Roderick" and it is clearly his most mature work.

*****2nd reading: Even better than the first. Really impressive.

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. Unreadable.

[Christopher Rush · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I read the first book about two years ago, and it was fine. Mr. Sladek loved his puns and his satire and his Eliot-like wellspring of allusions and knowledge and Joycean showoffiness. The first book was a bit slow, intentionally so, giving us Roderick's buildingsroman, if you will. I can be clever, too, when I wanna. It's all a a delightful, whimsical romp of how dangerous it is to put your faith and trust in machines and also be afraid of machines. Or something like that. Sometimes, as with the second, it gets a bit tendentious. It may be good to take this in smallish increments. However, be warned: Mr. Sladek wants you to remember just about every character, as they all come back again and again, and then again a few more times, especially in the second book.

The second book, which I somehow read rather rapidly, enjoys that sequel-privilege of assuming you know all the characters, and since Roderick is all grown up you don't have the rather irritating "growing up" section from the first book. The further into it you get, the more layered you remember it all is: all the tiers of characters return and interact and live, and Sladek has created a rather believable satiric world, in which time passes and consequences are encountered, and it's all a jumble of Voltaire and Hugo and D. Adams. It's terribly clever and extremely well-written, but the saltiness and satire tend to bunch up and annoy. However...

We should have listened to John Sladek back in the day. This may seem nonsensically outdated, what with all the Machines Lib and this and that, but we are all using a great deal more technology in 2018 than we were in 1983. How did he know? Probably because he was using a lot more technology in 1983 than he did in 1963. Well, we didn't listen. And now you people are addicted to cellular phones and tablets and pagers and blueberries and snozberries and all sorts of things. Students look at me like I'm insane when I suggest they write things by hand instead of type things on their computers at home with their earspuds in their ears with their instantaneously streamed music and shows and hula hoops and whatnot. The Scientists are out there dabbling with AI computers and soon we'll all be their slaves just like in Terminator. Except they killed us all just like the Cylons, didn't they? Uh-oh. We should have listened.

You may like this book, or these books, especially if you like layered stories with believable characters and a "living world" in which time passes for everyone without explicit descriptions of it (I guess Mr. GRR Martin didn't invent that after all), and one that satirizes computers and machines and drug abuse and thoughtlessness and asks genuine questions about life and sentience and worth and all that, you may like it. It doesn't tie off every single thread nicely, but it ties them all up well enough if you pay attention enough. It was all right.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I' not at all sure about this book. There are certain aspects that appeal to me, but I found the execution to be a bit on the dull side. The core idea of the book - the gradual awakening and self awareness of an AI - is one that has my attention. There are a number of twists and turns in the book that appeal to me, such as nobody believing Roderick that he was a robot, but the sheer volume of the book, it's poor editing, and it's ponderous style acted against it.

The volume - it contains two books - takes quite an investment of time to get through it. The story winds all over the place and includes the interaction of a variety of characters. It has some nice touches on academic life and it can be quite perceptive about commercial life at times. The core of the story is about how an AI can fit into society. The tale, as delivered by the book, is sharply at variance with how we see this issue today. Roderick is not necessarily competent, but he does his best. He is not all knowing and he isn't connected to a wider network of computers. He's a stand alone robot as envisaged in the 1950s. I didn't find that at all convincing.

The book aims at satire. I think it falls far from the mark. There are some puns and some humorous situations, but this is not a book that has the reader in stitches. It is written in a style that challenges the reader, which makes it a difficult read. At times, the text becomes quite obscure and you find yourself asking why certain passages are included in the book. The answer is not readily evident. If the text is too long winded, the responsibility ought to fall upon the editors. They have given rise to a book that is over-long.

Despite the interesting ideas contained within the book, I didn't much enjoy reading it. The writing style was one with which I couldn't become comfortable. I had very little sympathy with the main character - the robot - and I found him to be more or less forgettable. This is not a great read and I find it hard to recommend it.

[Sonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

sad ending. poor roderick. i read this to a feral foster kitten. i think it liked it.

[John Hood · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gave up after the first book (the actual volume has Roderick & Roderick at Random) and I struggled to see what the point was.

[Napalmlolita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts out EXTREMELY slowly, and never becomes really funny. One of the most mediocre things I've ever read.

[Antony · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I was expecting at all, this is a satirical novel about a robot who nobody believes is a robot, despite him telling them so at any opportunity. I'm not exactly sure what the author is trying to tell me about the human condition but it is an enjoyable ride. Not too much plot, more a series of increasingly strange episodes.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book reminded me of two other novels: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein. Sladek has a lot of the same sensibilities as Vonnegut as a writer. They're both great at dark/black humor and they both seemed interested in fake religions, of which this book contains many. It reminded me of Heinlein's novel because of the use of religious matter and an alien entity (in this case a robot pretending to be human) who is introduced into our society and has to make sense of it.

Roderick the robot provides Sladek the perfect vantage point to evaluate the mankind in a nearly objective fashion. This novel is funny, but it is pretty dark in its overall themes, such as the absurdity of life and the inability to find a purpose in said absurd life. Sladek does a good job providing many view points on the idea of what makes an entity human or at least a worthwhile, thinking creature, through his use of various religions and philosophical view points.

This novel really does a good job of progressing an absurdist view and Sladek does some interesting things with his prose, such as providing Roderick's stream of consciousness, which is fairly entertaining in his naive state.

[Kirk Macleod · Rating 3 out of 5]

With five titles left of my journey through David Pringle's Science Fiction: the 100 Best Books, I've just finished John Sladek's The Complete Roderick, which was originally published as Roderick (1980) and Roderick at Random (1983). The story is highly satirical and follows Roderick, the world's first self-aware robot, as he navigates his way through human culture.

Much of the novel is designed to make fun of the modern world from the point of view of an innocent. Roderick is created in a second-rate university hired by a representative from NASA who is only using the project to cover his own embezzling. As Roderick makes his way through the world (and to be fair, Roderick has no gender, so I should be saying "makes its way") it comes across all sorts of groups and institutions that simply refuse to see it as a robot, and instead assume Roderick is a disabled child. The novel doesn't have a lot of trust for larger institutions and is definitely against capitalism run amok, but at the same time shows how a creature unfamiliar with our world can construct a world view so alien as to seem impossible.

A fascinating read.

[Jacob · Rating 1 out of 5]

First, I must qualify this review with this: I DID NOT FINISH THIS BOOK. I read the first half, which is the first of the two Roderick books, but refuse to subject myself to the second book. I say this because I tend to finish books even if I hate them.

The novel - the story of a robot growing up in the Midwest - is dreadful. Meant to be funny, the jokes feel like the work of a hack pun writer for some D-List comedy show. The novel is disorganized, jumping back and forth between poorly crafted characters and numbingly stupid story lines. I cared zero for anybody in this book. The b.s. philosophy can't decide whether its luddite or anti-luddite. Or maybe anti-anti-luddite.

The novel is inspired by Vonnugut's "Player Piano," going so far as having a character reading that book and making insipid meta-references to it. "Player Piano" is both Vonnugut's first and his weakest novel, but is stellar fiction compared to "Roderick."

[SJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many of us think about the ethics of AI, not least fuelled by TV goodies such as Caprica, BSG et al... I'd not heard of John Sladek before, but was delighted to read this book - the development of AI with the 'robot' himself as the main protagonist - a quick learner, and confused by humanity as would be expected. There's a massive, inter-related, interesting and complex cast - some of the sub-plots reminded me of De Lillo or DFW, sometimes i found it a bit hectic (and felt I'd benefit from a cast list), but it was immensely enjoyable and very much more novelistic than lots of other sci-fi I thought...highly recommended.

[Kio · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Sladek really likes brick jokes... plenty of them in this novel. Like Tik-Tok, there's a sort of Vonnegut-tone to his writing and, although the story as a whole isn't a parody/comedy, there's definitely a good humor element there and a few parts I really couldn't help laughing at (and getting funny looks from people nearby).

And then there are some parts that just about killed me. This novel doesn't paint a kindly picture of humankind. My brother felt most of the characters were incompetent; in my opinion, malicious would be a better description.

I also, personally, found it a bit depressing. But a great read; I'm very glad I found this title.

[Roderick Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strange and almost unbelievable tale of how a boy is really a robot.

[Mawgojzeta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book (books). It is a fun social satire.

I kept comparing the style and feel of the writing to The Illuminatus! Trilogy: The Eye in the Pyramid/The Golden Apple/Leviathan and Schrödinger's Cat Trilogy. Almost a light version. Not the best description, I know...

[Edward Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly witty, incredibly touching novel that portrays the life of a robt named Roderick and how he copes with life and essentially goring up. As an allegory for the human condition this manages to be largely successful and really shows us how people treat each other because of their differences. Those who expect thsi to be a serious discussion may be disappointed, in spite of the serious topic the novel attempts to address.