Editing John Sladek

{{short description|American science fiction author (1937–2000)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2017}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name             = John Thomas Sladek
| image            = John_Sladek_in_the_1970s.png
| image_size       = 
| caption          = 
| pseudonym        = <!-- ISFDB lists many -->
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|1937|12|15}}
| birth_place      = [[Waverly, Iowa]], US
| death_date       = {{Death date and age|2000|03|10|1937|12|15}}
| death_place      = [[Minneapolis]], Minnesota, US
| occupation       = [[Novelist]]
| period           = 1966–2000
| genre            = Science fiction
| subject          = 
| movement         = [[New Wave (science fiction)|New Wave]]
| signature        = 
| website          = 
| spouse           = 
}}

'''John Thomas Sladek''' (December 15, 1937 – March 10, 2000)<ref name=langford /> was an American [[science fiction author]], known for his [[satire|satirical]] and [[surrealism|surreal]] novels.

== Life and work ==
Born in [[Waverly, Iowa]], in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the [[New Wave (science fiction)|New Wave]] movement and published his first story in the magazine'' [[New Worlds (magazine)|New Worlds]]''. His first [[science fiction]] novel, published in [[London]] by [[Victor Gollancz Ltd|Gollancz]] as ''[[The Reproductive System]]'' and in the United States as ''[[Mechasm]]'', dealt with a project to build [[clanking replicator|machines that build copies of themselves]], a process that gets out of hand and threatens to destroy humanity. In ''[[The Müller-Fokker Effect]]'', an attempt to preserve human personality on tape likewise goes awry, giving the author a chance to satirize big business, big religion, superpatriotism, and men's magazines, among other things. ''[[Roderick (novel)|Roderick]]'' and ''[[Roderick at Random]]'' offer the traditional satirical approach of looking at the world through the eyes of an innocent, in this case a robot. Sladek revisited robots from a darker point of view in the [[BSFA Award]] winning novel ''[[Tik-Tok (novel)|Tik-Tok]]'', featuring a [[sociopathic]] robot who lacks any moral "[[Three Laws of Robotics|asimov circuits]]", and ''[[Bugs (novel)|Bugs]]'', a wide-ranging satire in which a hapless technical writer (a job Sladek held for many years) helps to create a robot who quickly goes insane.

Sladek was also known for his parodies of other science fiction writers, such as [[Isaac Asimov]], [[Arthur C. Clarke]], and [[Cordwainer Smith]]. These were collected in ''[[The Steam-Driven Boy and other Strangers]]'' (1973). Under the [[pseudonym]] of "James Vogh", Sladek wrote ''[[Arachne Rising]]'', which purports to be a nonfiction account of a thirteenth sign of the zodiac suppressed by the scientific establishment, in an attempt to demonstrate that people will believe anything. In the 1960s he also co-wrote two pseudonymous novels with his friend [[Thomas M. Disch]], the Gothic ''The House that Fear Built'' (1966; as "Cassandra Knye") and the satirical thriller ''[[Black Alice (novel)|Black Alice]]'' (1968; as "Thom Demijohn").

Another of Sladek's notable parodies is of the [[anti-Stratfordian]] citation of the ''[[hapax legomenon]]'' in ''[[Love's Labour's Lost]]'' "[[honorificabilitudinitatibus]]" as an [[anagram]] of ''hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi'', [[Latin]] for "these plays, F. Bacon's offspring, are preserved for the world", "proving" that [[Francis Bacon]] wrote the play. Sladek noted that "honorificabilitudinitatibus" was also an anagram for ''I, B. Ionsonii, uurit [writ] a lift'd batch'', thus "proving" that Shakespeare's works were written by [[Ben Jonson]].

Sladek returned from England to [[Minneapolis]], [[Minnesota]],<ref name="sfencyclopedia" /> in 1986, where he lived until his death in 2000 from [[Diffuse parenchymal lung disease|pulmonary fibrosis]].  He was married twice, to [[Pamela Sladek]], which ended in divorce in 1986, and to Sandra Gunter whom he married in 1994.  He had a daughter from his first marriage.<ref name=langford />

==Skepticism==

A strict [[materialism|materialist]], Sladek subjected the occult and [[pseudoscience]] to merciless scrutiny in ''The New Apocrypha''. The book critically examined the claims of [[dowsing]], [[homeopathy]], [[parapsychology]], [[perpetual motion]] and [[Ufology]].<ref>Priest, Christopher. (1974). [https://books.google.com/books?id=VUS686JO6xcC&dq=The+New+Apocrypha+New+Scientist&pg=PA770 "The New Apocrypha by John Sladek"]. New Scientist. March 21. p. 770.</ref>

==Bibliography==

===Science fiction novels===
* ''[[The Reproductive System]]'' Gollancz 1968, Equinox/Avon SF Rediscovery 3  1977, Gollancz Classic SF #8 1986; as ''[[Mechasm]]'' Ace Special 1969, Pocket 1980
* ''[[The Müller-Fokker Effect]]'' Hutchinson 1970; William Morrow 1971, Panther 1972, Pocket 1973, Carrol & Graf 1990
* ''[[Roderick (novel)|Roderick]]'' Granada 1980; Carroll & Graf 1987
* ''[[Roderick at Random]]'' Granada 1983, Carroll & Graf 1988
* ''[[Tik-Tok (novel)|Tik-Tok]]'' Gollancz 1983, Corgi 1984, DAW 1985 Gollancz 2001; winner of the [[British Science Fiction Association]] Best Novel award in 1984;
* ''Love Among the Xoids'' Chris Drumm (chapbook) 1984;<ref name=Reginald>Reginald 1992, p. 905.</ref>
* ''[[Bugs (novel)|Bugs]]'' Macmillan UK 1989, Paladin 1991
* ''Blood and Gingerbread'' Cheap Street (chapbook) 1990;<ref name=Reginald />
* ''Wholly Smokes'' Wildside 2003.

===Science fiction collections===
* ''[[The Steam-Driven Boy and other Strangers]]'' Panther 1973, Wildside 2005
* ''[[Keep the Giraffe Burning]]'' Panther 1977, Wildside 2004
* ''The Best of John Sladek'' Pocket 1981<ref name=Reginald />
* ''Alien Accounts'' Granada 1982, Wildside 2005
* ''[[The Lunatics of Terra]]'' Gollancz 1984, Wildside 2005
* ''[[Maps (science fiction collection)|Maps: The Uncollected John Sladek]]'', edited by [[David Langford]] (2002).

===Omnibus editions===
* ''The Complete Roderick'' comprising ''Roderick'' and ''Roderick at Random'' Gollancz SF Masterworks #45 2001, Overlook Press 2004
* ''The Reproductive System'' / ''The Müller-Fokker Effect'' / ''Tik-Tok'' Gollancz 2013

===Mystery novels and stories===
* ''The Castle and the Key'' (as by Cassandra Knye) Paperback Library 1967
* "By an Unknown Hand", the first story featuring the detective [[Thackeray Phin]], which was awarded the first prize in The Times Detective Story Competition in 1972, and published in ''The Times Anthology of Detective Stories'' (now included in the collection ''Maps'', edited by David Langford (2002));
* ''Black Aura'' Jonathan Cape 1974, Panther 1975, a Phin novel;
* "It Takes Your Breath Away", a Phin short story, originally printed in theatre programmes for a London play, 1974 (now included in ''Maps'');
* ''Invisible Green'' Gollancz 1977, the second Phin novel. Both Phin novels are [[locked room mystery|locked room mysteries]].

===Nonfiction===
* ''The New Apocrypha: A Guide to Strange Science and Occult Beliefs'' [[Stein and Day]] 1973, Panther 1978
* ''Arachne Rising: The Search for the Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac'' (1977) (as James Vogh)
* ''The Cosmic Factor'' (1978) (as James Vogh)
* ''Judgement of Jupiter'' (1980) (as Richard A. Tilms)<ref>Clute 1995, p. 186.</ref><ref name="sfencyclopedia" />
* ''The Book of Clues'' (1984)<ref name=Reginald />

===With Thomas M. Disch===
* ''The House that Fear Built'' (1966)
* ''Black Alice'' (1968)

===Selected short stories===
* "[[The Happy Breed]]"
* "Elephant With Wooden Leg"
* "[[The Great Wall of Mexico (short story)|The Great Wall of Mexico]]"
* "[https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v25n03_1967-02#page/n121/mode/2up The Discovery of the Nullitron]" (with Thomas M. Disch)

==References==

{{reflist |refs=
<ref name=langford>{{cite web |title=Obituary: John Sladek |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/apr/13/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.obituaries |website=theguardian.com |last=Langford |first=David |date=April 13, 2000 |access-date=March 1, 2015}}</ref>
<ref name=sfencyclopedia>{{cite web |title=Sladek, John T. |url=http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/sladek_john_t |website=The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction |edition=3rd |last=Clute |first=John |access-date=March 19, 2017}}</ref>
}}
;Citations
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite book |last=Clute |first=John |author-link=John Clute |title=Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia |publisher=Dorling Kindersley |year=1995 |location=London, New York, Stuttgart |pages=312 |isbn=978-0-7513-0202-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Reginald |first=Robert |title=Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, 1975–1991 |publisher=Gale Research, Inc. |year=1992 |location=Detroit, Washington DC, London |pages=[https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionfa0000regi/page/1512 1512] |url=https://archive.org/details/sciencefictionfa0000regi/page/1512 |isbn=978-0-8103-1825-0 }}
{{refend}}

==External links==
* [http://www.ansible.co.uk/writing/jsladek.html "An Interview with John Sladek (1982)"] by [[David Langford]]
* [https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,3604,178818,00.html Guardian newspaper obituary] by David Langford
* [http://ae.ansible.co.uk/?id=authors/sladek John Sladek at Ansible Editions]
* {{isfdb name|1036|name=John Sladek}}
* {{LCAuth|n79139678|John Thomas Sladek|19|}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sladek, John}}
[[Category:1937 births]]
[[Category:2000 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American male short story writers]]
[[Category:American science fiction writers]]
[[Category:American satirists]]
[[Category:American satirical novelists]]
[[Category:American surrealist writers]]
[[Category:American skeptics]]
[[Category:American critics of alternative medicine]]
[[Category:Critics of parapsychology]]
[[Category:People from Waverly, Iowa]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]