John Sladek
Encyclopedia
John Thomas Sladek was an American
science fiction
author, known for his satirical
and surreal
novels.
in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the New Wave
movement and published his first story in New Worlds
. His first science fiction
novel, published in London
by Gollancz
as The Reproductive System and in the United States as Mechasm, dealt with a project to build machines that build copies of themselves
, a process that gets out of hand and threatens to destroy humanity. In The Müller-Fokker Effect
, an attempt to preserve human personality on tape likewise goes awry, giving the author a chance to satirize big business, big religion, superpatriotism, and men's magazines, among other things. Roderick and Roderick at Random offer the traditional satirical approach of looking at the world through the eyes of an innocent, in this case a robot. Sladek revisited robots from a darker point of view in the BSFA Award
winning novel Tik-Tok
, featuring a sociopath
ic robot who lacks any moral "asimov circuits
", and Bugs, a wide-ranging satire in which a hapless technical writer (a job Sladek held for many years) helps to create a robot who quickly goes insane.
Sladek was also known for his parodies of other science fiction writers, such as Isaac Asimov
, Arthur C. Clarke
, and Cordwainer Smith
. These were collected in The Steam-Driven Boy and other Strangers
(1973).
A strict materialist
, Sladek subjected dubious science and the occult to merciless scrutiny in The New Apocrypha. Under the name of James Vogh, Sladek wrote Arachne Rising, which purports to be a nonfiction account of a thirteenth sign of the zodiac suppressed by the scientific establishment, in an attempt to demonstrate that people will believe anything. In the 1960s he also co-wrote two pseudonymous novels with his friend Thomas M. Disch
, the Gothic The House that Fear Built (1966; as Cassandra Knye) and the satirical thriller Black Alice
(1968; as Thom Demijohn).
Another of Sladek's notable parodies is of the anti-Stratfordian citation of the hapax legomenon
in Love's Labour's Lost
"honorificabilitudinitatibus
" as an anagram
of hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi, Latin
for "these plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world, "proving" that Francis Bacon
wrote the play. Sladek noted that "honorificabilitudinitatibus" was also an anagram for I, B. Ionsonii, uurit [writ] a lift'd batch, thus "proving" that Shakespeare's works were written by Ben Jonson
.
Sladek returned from England to Minneapolis, Minnesota
in 1986, where he lived until his death in 2000 from pulmonary fibrosis
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author, known for his satirical
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
and surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
novels.
Life and work
Born in Waverly, IowaWaverly, Iowa
Waverly is a city in Bremer County, Iowa, United States. The population was 9,874 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Bremer County and is part of the Waterloo–Cedar Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area....
in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the New Wave
New Wave (science fiction)
New Wave is a term applied to science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. The term "New Wave" is borrowed from the French...
movement and published his first story in New Worlds
New Worlds (magazine)
New Worlds was a British science fiction magazine which was first published professionally in 1946. For 25 years it was widely considered the leading science fiction magazine in Britain, publishing 201 issues up to 1971...
. His first science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel, published in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
by Gollancz
Victor Gollancz Ltd
Victor Gollancz Ltd was a major British book publishing house of the twentieth century. It was founded in 1927 by Victor Gollancz and specialised in the publication of high quality literature, nonfiction and popular fiction, including science fiction. Upon Gollancz's death in 1967, ownership...
as The Reproductive System and in the United States as Mechasm, dealt with a project to build machines that build copies of themselves
Clanking replicator
A clanking replicator is an artificial self-replicating system that relies on conventional large-scale technology and automation. The term evolved to distinguish such systems from the microscopic "assemblers" that nanotechnology may make possible...
, a process that gets out of hand and threatens to destroy humanity. In The Müller-Fokker Effect
The Müller-Fokker Effect
The Müller-Fokker Effect is a satirical science fiction novel written by John Sladek in 1970. It has long been out of print in the United States, having come out in a Pocket Books edition in 1973. A reprint was done in 1990 by Carroll & Graf...
, an attempt to preserve human personality on tape likewise goes awry, giving the author a chance to satirize big business, big religion, superpatriotism, and men's magazines, among other things. Roderick and Roderick at Random offer the traditional satirical approach of looking at the world through the eyes of an innocent, in this case a robot. Sladek revisited robots from a darker point of view in the BSFA Award
BSFA award
The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association to honor works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members...
winning novel Tik-Tok
Tik-Tok (novel)
Tik-Tok is a 1983 science fiction novel by John Sladek. It received a 1983 British Science Fiction Association Award. A later paperback edition was issued by Gollancz in 2002.-Plot summary:...
, featuring a sociopath
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...
ic robot who lacks any moral "asimov circuits
Three Laws of Robotics
The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories...
", and Bugs, a wide-ranging satire in which a hapless technical writer (a job Sladek held for many years) helps to create a robot who quickly goes insane.
Sladek was also known for his parodies of other science fiction writers, such as Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...
, Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, and Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
. These were collected in The Steam-Driven Boy and other Strangers
The Steam-Driven Boy and other Strangers
The Steam-Driven Boy and other strangers is a science fiction short story collection by John Sladek, published in 1973.- Contents :*The Secret of the Old Custard *The Aggressor...
(1973).
A strict materialist
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
, Sladek subjected dubious science and the occult to merciless scrutiny in The New Apocrypha. Under the name of James Vogh, Sladek wrote Arachne Rising, which purports to be a nonfiction account of a thirteenth sign of the zodiac suppressed by the scientific establishment, in an attempt to demonstrate that people will believe anything. In the 1960s he also co-wrote two pseudonymous novels with his friend Thomas M. Disch
Thomas M. Disch
Thomas Michael Disch was an American science fiction author and poet. He won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book – previously called "Best Non-Fiction Book" – in 1999, and he had two other Hugo nominations and nine Nebula Award nominations to his credit, plus one win of the John W...
, the Gothic The House that Fear Built (1966; as Cassandra Knye) and the satirical thriller Black Alice
Black Alice (novel)
Black Alice is a novel by Thomas M. Disch and John Sladek , published in 1968.-Plot summary:During the 1960s, in Virginia, while the blacks fight for their civil rights, a young white girl is kidnapped in Baltimore. Little Alice Raleigh, eleven years and blonde like corn, and heiress of an immense...
(1968; as Thom Demijohn).
Another of Sladek's notable parodies is of the anti-Stratfordian citation of the hapax legomenon
Hapax legomenon
A hapax legomenon is a word which occurs only once within a context, either in the written record of an entire language, in the works of an author, or just in a single text. The term is sometimes used incorrectly to describe a word that occurs in just one of an author's works, even though it...
in Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost
Love's Labour's Lost is one of William Shakespeare's early comedies, believed to have been written in the mid-1590s, and first published in 1598.-Title:...
"honorificabilitudinitatibus
Honorificabilitudinitatibus
Honorificabilitudinitatibus is the dative and ablative plural of the mediæval Latin word honorificabilitudinitas, which can be translated as "the state of being able to achieve honours". It is mentioned by the character Costard in Act V, Scene I of William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost...
" as an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
of hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
for "these plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world, "proving" that Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon
Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...
wrote the play. Sladek noted that "honorificabilitudinitatibus" was also an anagram for I, B. Ionsonii, uurit [writ] a lift'd batch, thus "proving" that Shakespeare's works were written by Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
.
Sladek returned from England to Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
in 1986, where he lived until his death in 2000 from pulmonary fibrosis
Diffuse parenchymal lung disease
Interstitial lung disease , also known as diffuse parenchymal lung disease , refers to a group of lung diseases affecting the interstitium ....
.
Science fiction novels
- The Reproductive System (a.k.a. Mechasm) (1968);
- The Müller-Fokker EffectThe Müller-Fokker EffectThe Müller-Fokker Effect is a satirical science fiction novel written by John Sladek in 1970. It has long been out of print in the United States, having come out in a Pocket Books edition in 1973. A reprint was done in 1990 by Carroll & Graf...
(1970); - Roderick (1980);
- Roderick at Random (1983) (the Roderick series was also published in a three-volume edition with different volume divisions, and both have been reprinted together in one volume by Overlook Press);
- Tik-TokTik-Tok (novel)Tik-Tok is a 1983 science fiction novel by John Sladek. It received a 1983 British Science Fiction Association Award. A later paperback edition was issued by Gollancz in 2002.-Plot summary:...
(1983), winner of the British Science Fiction AssociationBritish Science Fiction AssociationThe British Science Fiction Association was founded in 1958 by a group of British science fiction fans, authors, publishers and booksellers, in order to encourage science fiction in every form. It is an open membership organisation costing £26 per year for UK residents and £18 for the unwaged. The...
Best Novel award in 1984; - Love Among the Xoids (1984);
- Bugs (1989);
- Blood and Gingerbread (1990);
- Wholly Smokes (2003).
Science fiction collections
- The Steam-Driven Boy and other StrangersThe Steam-Driven Boy and other StrangersThe Steam-Driven Boy and other strangers is a science fiction short story collection by John Sladek, published in 1973.- Contents :*The Secret of the Old Custard *The Aggressor...
(1973) - Keep the Giraffe BurningKeep the Giraffe BurningKeep the Giraffe Burning was a science fiction short story collection by John Sladek, published in 1977.- Contents :*Foreword*Elephant with Wooden Leg*The Design*The Face*The Master Plan*Flatland*A Game of Jump...
(1977) - The Best of John Sladek (1981)
- Alien Accounts (1982)
- The Lunatics of Terra (1984)
- The Book of Clues (1984)
- Maps: The Uncollected John Sladek, edited by David LangfordDavid LangfordDavid Rowland Langford is a British author, editor and critic, largely active within the science fiction field. He publishes the science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible.-Personal background:...
(2002).
Selected Short stories
- "The Happy BreedThe Happy BreedThe Happy Breed is a short story by John Sladek from Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions . It details the lifestyle of the five last adult-like humans in a world of completely machine-dependent "zombies"....
" - "Elephant With Wooden Leg"
- "The Great Wall of MexicoThe Great Wall of Mexico (short story)"The Great Wall of Mexico" is a science fiction short story by John Sladek. It was first published in the 1973 anthology Bad Moon Rising: An Anthology of Political Forebodings edited by Thomas M. Disch...
"
Mystery novels and stories
- "By an Unknown Hand", the first story featuring the detective Thackeray Phin, which was awarded the first prize in The Times Detective Story Competition in 1972, and published in The Times Anthology of Detective Stories (now included in the collection Maps, edited by David Langford (2002));
- Black Aura (1974), a Phin novel;
- "It Takes Your Breath Away", a Phin short story, originally printed in theatre programmes for a London play, 1974 (now included in Maps);
- Invisible Green (1977) the second Phin novel. Both Phin novels are locked room mysteriesLocked room mysteryThe locked room mystery is a sub-genre of detective fiction in which a crime—almost always murder—is committed under apparently impossible circumstances. The crime in question typically involves a crime scene that no intruder could have entered or left, e.g., a locked room...
.
Nonfiction
- The New Apocrypha: a Guide to Strange Science and Occult Beliefs Stein and DayStein and DayStein and Day, Inc. was an American publishing company founded by Sol Stein and his wife Patricia Day in 1962. Stein was both the publisher and the editor-in-chief...
(1973) - Arachne Rising: The Search for the Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac (1977) (as James Vogh)
- The Cosmic Factor (1978) (as James Vogh)
- Judgement of Jupiter (1980) (as Richard A. Tilms)