John Sladek - The Complete Roderick (1980-83) 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. (5/5) #johnsladek #roderick #scifi #sciencefiction #book #books #bookish #bibliophile #bookgram #bookstagram #bookporn #bookworm #booklover #bookcover (at Lisbon, Portugal) https://www.instagram.com/p/B8NAkqDlOGZ/?igshid=r27boeywt068
