Publications: Reviews

THE COMPLETE RODERICK by John Sladek (Gollancz 611pp £7.99) and THE LEAKY ESTABLISHMENT by David Langford (Big Engine 209pp £7.99)

The Complete Roderick is No 45 in the SF Masterworks Series, and presents this major work by John Sladek (whose untimely death occurred in 2000) as he always intended it to be. Originally published in the early 1980’s in two volumes (Roderick and Roderick at Random) Sladek has written the often hilarious and always thoughtful story of Roderick, a robot who finds himself at large in our world, and so has to deal with all those mad humans, survive and stay in one piece. The edge of darkness so close to the surface throughout much of the story only adds to its impact.

Sladek was a master of satire and ironic humour, and The Complete Roderick is the welcome reappearance of a neglected treasure. Sladek’s work (and especially his scintillating short stories) typifies a small and not often ploughed corner of the sf field. Along with such authors as William Tenn, Harry Harrison, and the late Fritz Leiber and Bob Shaw, Sladek kept science fiction from so often being largely humourless and prone to undue self-importance.

David Langford is still very much with us, and this reprint of The Leaky Establishment (1984) is a vintage novel from a writer who has unfortunately produced remarkably little fiction -- though what there has been is of remarkably high quality and has been award-winning. Langford’s work is generally within the same tradition in science fiction as John Sladek’s -- irreverent, knowing, deeply informed, understatedly funny. (Langford is also editing a forthcoming edition of Sladek’s previously uncollected short stories.)

The Leaky Establishment is very much a novel from its time, with the end of the Cold War in sight for those who had eyes to see, but when peace protestors were active outside nuclear establishments and Protect and Survive was a recent memory. Langford used to work at AWRE Aldermaston, and knew the set-up that he satirises in The Leaky Establishment.

When nuclear research worker Roy Tappen ends up as the possessor (don't ask) of a plutonium warhead core -- outside of his place of work -- the ease of its removal is nothing compared with the difficulties in trying to get it back to its rightful place. Time and time again Langford chronicles Tappen’s hapless attempts to put things back to the way that they should be. The danger really was within, all along....

Copyright (c) 2001 John Howard