#176 Silicon and steel: The Reproductive System (1968) by John Sladek

The Science Fiction Encyclopedia states that "there is a false belief that SF and humour do not mix." The SFE does concede, though, that the two are more successfully fused in short stories rather than in the novel form. Like Douglas Adams, Harry Harrison, and Robert Sheckley, John Sladek was a writer who was able to make it work.

The Reproductive System (1968) is Sladek's first SF novel, originally published in 1968. This frenzied satire is built on the comic potential of robots gone awry, consuming everything in their path and remaking the world in their own image. As absurd as it is, there is something surprisingly prescient about what the novel has to say about the high-tech world we live in, decades later.

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