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bobbyzee's review against another edition
4.0
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 :)
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 :)
mendelbot's review against another edition
1.0
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."
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."
pandoozled14's review against another edition
It was not gripping. Things happened as if it was a soap, stupid events happen but no intention on making it interesting for the reader.
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