#45. THE COMPLETE RODERICK By John Sladek

Published : 1980 & 1983
Pages : 609
Overall Mark : 8/10

Roderick is a robot who learns. He begins life looking like a toy tank, thinking like a child, and knowing nothing whatever of human ways. But as he will discover, growing up and becoming fully human is no easy task in a world where many people seem to have little difficulty giving up their humanity and descending to other levels. Published here for the first time in one volume, the two novels which comprise The Complete Roderick are John Sladek's satirical masterpiece.

JOHN SLADEK (1937-2000)
Born in the USA, John Sladek moved to Britain in 1966 and became closely involved with the British New Wave movement and New Worlds magazine, sometimes collaborating with his childhood frined Thomas M. Disch. His other novels include The Reproductive System, The Muller-Fokker Effect and Tik-Tok.

VERDICT
This is an incredibly witty, incredibly touching novel that portrays the life of a robt named Roderick and how he copes with life and essentially goring up. As an allegory for the human condition this manages to be largely successful and really shows us how people treat each other because of their differences. Those who expect thsi to be a serious discussion may be disappointed, in spite of the serious topic the novel attempts to address.

#44. THE LATHE OF HEAVEN By Ursula Le Guin

Published : 1971
Pages : 184
Overall Mark : 7/10

George Orr is in most respects a mild and unremarkable man, but he has an ability with which he can transform the world around him, for George's dreams alter reality. His psychiatrist, William Haber, at first sceptical, cannot resist using George's powers once he sees their effects - initially just to advance his own career, but then, gaining confidence, to try to change their overcrowded world into a more attractive place.

URSULA LE GUIN (1929-)
Born in 1929, daughter of a famous anthropologist, Le Guin published her first novel in 1966. Her reputation as one of the world's leading SF and fantasy writers was established with the publication of A Wizard Of Earthsea (1968) followed by The Left Hand Of Darkness (1969) and The Dispossessed, both of which won both the Hugo and Nebula awards.

VERDICT
This is an interesting story - taking the idea of a man whose dreams come true, and using the theory of the genie's wishes that always go wrong no matter how philanthropic the intent might be - and showing how even the simplest wish can make matters worse. Sadly it becomes too far fetched, with an opening sequence that creates an idea that you start to belive in until the dream worlds become increasingly unrealistic.

#43. VALIS By Philip K Dick

Published : 1981
Pages : 256
Overall Mark : 8/10

It began with a blinding light. A divine revelation from a mysterious intelligence that called itself VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System). And with that, the fabric of reality was torn apart and laid bare so that anything seemed possible but nothing seemed quite right. It was madness, pure and simple. But what if it were true?

PHILIP K. DICK (1928-1982)
'One of the two or three most important figures in 20th century US SF' (The Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction). Born one of twins - his sister died in infancy - he lived most of his life in California, and wrote more than fifty books in a career of prodigious productivity and achievement. The films Blade Runner and Total Recall are both based on his stories.

VERDICT
As one of the last books Dick ever saw published, this is his usual mixture of theology and drug induced schizophrenia. What makes this so good is the fact that as the book progresses it sort of devolves into a paranoid delusion, mirroring Dick's life at the time, and giving us a further glimpse into the mind of one of Science Fictions all times great authors.

#42. BRING THE JUBILEE By Ward Moore

Published : 1952
Pages : 194
Overall Mark : 7/10

Hodge Backmaker lives in twentieth century New York, a city of cobblestones, gas lamps and ten-storey skyscrapers. In his world, the Confederate South won its independence in the Civil War and North America is divided, with slavery and serfdom still facts of life in the Confederacy and New York a provincial backwater. Bring The Jubilee stands alongside Pavane as science fiction's finest exploration of alternative history.

WARD MOORE (1903-1978)
Moore wrote a number of novels, of which only four are science fiction. The others, which are contemporary satires or dystopias, are largely forgotten, but Bring The Jubilee has been in print since its first publication in 1953, and has always been recognized as one of the finest novels of its kind. The film Panic In The Year Zero is based on two of his stories.

VERDICT
In terms of alternate history novels, this isn't a bad concept - a world in which the South won the American War of Independence - but it's just too short to encapsulate the entire notion of this world in which slavery is rife and imperialism is commonplace. Plus the copout of writing it as an incomplete diary allows the author to stop wherever he pleases, leaving the reader potentially dissatisfied.

#41. JEM By Frederik Pohl

Published : 1979
Pages : 300
Overall Mark : 8/10

The discovery of another habitable world might spell salvation to the three bitterly competing power blocs of the resource-starved 21st century; but when their representatives arrive on Jem, with its multiple intelligent species, they discover instead the perfect situation into which to export their rivalries. Subtitled, with savage irony, 'The Making Of A Utopia', Jem is one of Frederik Pohl's most powerful novels.

FREDERIK POHL (1919-)
Frederik Pohl has been a professional SF writer and editor for nearly 50 years. He first achieved fame for the series of novels he wrote in the 1950s in collaboration with C. M. Kornbluth, notably The Space Merchants and Wolfbane. He grew up in New York, but now lives near Chicago. He won the Nebula Award for best novel in consecutive years with Man Plus and Gateway.

VERDICT
Pohl is a truly gifted writer, and this book is another example of how he can make a political satire out of a sci-fi novel. The ways in which those of the Earth use the colonisation of another planet as a means of obscuring the problems they have among themselves at home is wonderfully handled, and remains a view that many have had about politicians throughout history thus rendering this a timeless classic.

#40. BLOOD MUSIC By Greg Bear

Published : 1985
Pages : 262
Overall Mark : 7/10

Virgil Ulam is a maverick researcher working on biochips which will use DNA as a means of information processing. Ignoring guidelines for genetic research, he goes further, producing intelligent cellular matter which can outperform laboratory rats. On being found out and ordered to destroy the experiment, he injects himself with some of the culture, and walksout carrying a seed which will develop far beyond the limits of his brilliant but blinkered imagination.

GREG BEAR (1951-)
Born in 1951, Bear published his first story in 1967, and his first novel in 1979. Although his academic background is in English, he has established a reputation as one of the finest contemporary writers of scientifically rigorous SF. Blood Music won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in its first, shorter version. His other novels include Eon, The Forge Of God and Eternity.

VERDICT
This is a pretty humorous yet subtly intriguing look at how a simple virus could potentially transfom humanity into something barely recognisable. Bear brings us a vision that is both worryingly alien and scarily possible, and his slow pacing makes it a journey that feels real as each stage of the virus progresses. A fascintaing vision of a simple mistake leading to a complex change in mankind.

#39. THE CITY AND THE STARS By Arthur C Clarke

Published : 1956
Pages : 255
Overall Mark : 8/10

There had been cities before, but never such a city as Diaspar. For millenia its protective dome shut out the creeping decay and danger of the world outside. Once, it had held powers that ruled the stars; but then, the legends said, the Invaders came, driving humanity into this last refuge. This is Arthur Clarke's masterly vision of the far distant future, millions of years after our civilization has vanished into dust.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE (1917-2008)
Born in Somerset in 1917, but a long-time resident of Sri Lanka, Sir Arthur Clarke is the world's most famous living SF writer: author of the scientific paper which established the principle of communications satellites, collaborator with Stanley Kubrick on 2001, and winner of numerous awards for his novels, including Childhood's End, The City And The Stars and Rendezvous With Rama.

VERDICT
This is Clarke at his best, with a wonderful vision of the distant future where mankind is forced to remain isolated for fear of attack from an alien race. As with many sci fi novels before and since, the truth soon comes out thanks to a single unique individual and their unusual view on things. Clarke manages to create a vivid world controlled by machines that is both impressive and frightening.