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A review by mendelbot
The Complete Roderick by John Sladek
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."