John Sladek, 1937 - 2000
American SF writer John Sladek, who became associated with the British New Wave during his years in London, died March 10, 2000, at his home in Edina, Minnesota.
After several early stories and novels, including Black Alice (1968), written in collaboration with Thomas M. Disch, Sladek became known for novels exploring relations between man and machine, including his first SF novel The Reproductive System (1968; US title Mechasm), and The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970). His best known works were two volumes of robot 'autobiography': Roderick (1980; US abridged 1982), and Roderick at Random (1983); the pair was included as one entry in David Pringle's 1985 volume Science Fiction: 100 Best Novels. Later novels were Tik-tok (1983), winner of the 1984 British Science Fiction Association Award, and Bugs (1989), a tale of a hapless novelist and technical writer in a deranged 21st-century US.
A longer obituary of Sladek will appear in the April 2000 Locus.
