Tik-Tok (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

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Sladek's nightmarishly satirical future America is full of daft technology like a nuclear-powered land aircraft carrier the size of Delaware, needing million tyres. Starting life on a Southern plantation where they lynch robots instead of blacks, Tik-Tok rapidly changes owners: Flint Orifice who repeatedly "saves" Tik-Tok at public performances, and many more.

Successful careers as robot artist and crimelord are mere steps toward the top. It seems Tik-Tok can talk his way out of anything, even the bad publicity when his Clockman Medical Centre kicks out non-paying patients: His Wages for Robots campaign, improvised mostly for the fun of guilt-tripping human audiences, is a springboard into US politics. Then he commits one murder too many Wonderfully, horribly inventive and funny.

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Tik-Tok (GOLLANCZ S.F.)

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Showing of 8 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. This is a great and totally bonkers read all about a robot who seems to have had his behavioural inhibiters disabled meaning that he can lie and deceive humans, steal from them, murder them, blow them up, ram them down waste disposal units, raid banks, commit insurance frauds, run for politics. Where many tales of robots see them as benevolent mechanical friends of humanity, this tale turns all that on it's head with our deviant anti-hero.

Told from Tik-Tok's point of view we see his cold calculating mind at work sometimes just vague hints at his malice and misdeed, other times a full onslaught of his evil intentions to maliciously ruin the lives of others just for entertainment. Should definitely be read alongside the classic robotic tales of Isaac Asimov, whose laws are obliquely referenced here as Tik-Tok's Asimov circuits seem to be faulty, meaning that he can act with free will in his own interests, rather than for the good of his human masters. I very much enjoyed this book and would highly recommend it to lovers of Asimov style robot fiction.

Next, I'm checking out Sladek's more benign Roderick One person found this helpful. Very well received gift.

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The best fictional book ever written, fell off my seat with laughter while reading it! I enjoyed the story but the publisher has allowed far too many errors into the text, probably when scanning the printed version. These should have been picked up by the most basic proofreading, or even an automated spellcheck. The quality control is particularly poor towards the end of the book, distracting you from what should be a gripping conclusion.

There are also large gaps in the text. Avoid this on the kindle and go with the paperback. I had heard this book was an outrageously funny masterpiece of black humor, so finally, after many years I tracked it down at the library. While I discovered is a brief satire with a one joke premise that's diverting, but ages quickly.

Told in 26 chapters-each of whose first word follows the sequence of the alphabet Chapter 1, "As"; Chapter 2 "Broaching"; Chapter 3. Tik-Tok has "asimov circuits" which are supposed to keep him from harming humans, but somehow these aren't working, or as he suggests at one point, never really existed in the first place, but are part of some massive groupthink. If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Read more Read less.

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Gollancz; New edition edition 15 February Language: Be the first to review this item Would you like to tell us about a lower price? Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a product review. Most helpful customer reviews on Amazon. I read Tic-Toc many years ago and thought it was one of the best pieces of satirical sci-fi I had ever read. Now I have my own copy. Tik Tok is two ideas in one slim fast read: Sladek launched his career in the SF New Wave of the sixties, and spent most of his time examining Robots and AI -- in fact in the mid-nineties he was a technical writer for a software firm.

It could easily be argued that he wrote the same novel over and over -- and I should know, I've read all of them. In a genre overflowing with techno-drivel and humourless prostulation, Sladek threw pies in the face of Science Fiction's sacred cows. And he threw them HARD. His masterpiece is "Roderick" both books.

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