Private William Mandella is a man about to embark on a journey that will traverse space and time, war and uneasy peace. By the close of the book, the reluctant soldier will have travelled over twelve centuries. That can be traumatic enough, but it is the changes in society, mores, and norms that will be the most difficult barriers facing him. No work before or since this novel has so successfully portrayed the emotional toll of what is, essentially, time-travel.
Never before published in its entirety in the United States, The Complete Roderick is John Sladek's masterpiece. Roderick is a robot who learns. He begins life looking like a toy tank, thinking like a child, and knowing nothing about 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 trouble giving up their humanity.
The Complete Roderick is widely considered to be the most ambitious and genius work of a novelist described by The Encyclopedia of ScienceFiction as "the most formally inventive, the funniest, and very nearly the most melancholy of modern US science fiction writers."
"Superb comparable with early Kurt Vonnegut." Time Out
John Sladek (1937-2000) was born in the United States andmoved to the U.K. in 1966, where he became involved with the British New Wave movement and New Worlds Magazine, sometimes collaborating with his childhood friend, Thomas M. Disch. Sladek's other novels include The Reproductive System, The Muller-Fokker Effect, and Tik-Tok.
As one of Wells lesser known novels "The Food of the Gods" is often out of print and difficult to find. Despite its obscure status, it represents an early examination of scientific ethics that helped define an important genre in science fiction.As a result of research into the growth curves of living matter, two scientists invent a seemingly miraculous substance called Herakleophorbia IV, nicknamed "The Food of the Gods."Its consumption causes accelerated uninterrupted growth in all forms of life. Its creators' lack of forethought and ineptitude results in terrifying consequences when the substance escapes the bounds of the experiment and is ingested by unintended creatures.This early masterpiece was a groundbreaking conjecture of many of the real issues now confronting scientists about genetically engineered foods and ethical considerations in scientific experimentation.
Github | Docker | Project
Private William Mandella is a man about to embark on a journey that will traverse space and time, war and uneasy peace. By the close of the book, the reluctant soldier will have travelled over twelve centuries. That can be traumatic enough, but it is the changes in society, mores, and norms that will be the most difficult barriers facing him. No work before or since this novel has so successfully portrayed the emotional toll of what is, essentially, time-travel.