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John Sladek
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 John Sladek began writing in the sf genre at the height of the New Wave. Then resident in England,
he published fiction in New Worlds and in Dangerous
Visions, and then several powerful satirical novels,
beginning with The Reproductive System (1968 -- later
Mechasm). He is a serious and innovative writer
whose allegiance to genre conventions is nearly nonexistent, but he is a rationalist and moral satirist who
despises cant and humbug, often presenting them in a darkly humorous light.
Tik-Tok (1983), for instance, is a novel about a robot who becomes a murderer after damage to his "Asimov circuits." Sladek's stories are
often absurd and surreal, but in spite of their tone, style and affect, much of his fiction is in dialogue with genre
sf, often hard sf. The Encyclopedia of Science
Fiction characterizes him thusly: "the most formally inventive,
the funniest, and very nearly the most melancholy of modern US sf writers, JTS has always addressed the heart
of the genre, but never spoken from it."
"Stop Evolution in Its Tracks" implies by antithesis the validity of the hard sf attitude. It is an
interesting contrast in technique to James P. Hogan's "Making Light," which approaches everything from the
assumed hard sf attitudes (and equates them with moral superiority), without attempting any formal innovation.
This energetic and sophisticated piece succeeds by making pseudoscience into surrealism. Sladek's allegiance
to reason and science is affirmed by making the opposite madness.
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The Ascent of Wonder copyright © 1994 by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. | ||
Cramer: On Science & Science Fiction || Hartwell: Hard Science Fiction
David G. Hartwell || Kathryn Cramer || About Tor Books || Ordering Info
Interactive Intoduction to THE ASCENT OF WONDER copyright © 1995-1997 by Kathryn Cramer.