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Gateway Essentials, Fiction, Science fiction
'A Robot shall not injure a human being, or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm'.
That's Asimov's celebrated First Law of Robotics. And in the 21st century, all domestic robots are programmed according to that Law.
But something had gone terribly wrong with Tik-Tok's 'asimov circuits', and he sets out to injure as many people as possible - preferably fatally - while maintaining the exterior of a mild-mannered artist and a sincere campaigner for robot rights. So, like any self-respecting crook and murderer, he moves into politics, becoming the first robot candidate for Vice-President of the United States.
Tik-Tok follows his maniacal progress from humble beginnings to the top of the heap - or almost. Because in his devious cunning, there was one element that Tik-Tok had forgotten...
Winner of the BSFA Award for best novel, 1983
John Sladek
John Sladek (1937 - 2000)
John Sladek was born in Iowa in 1937 but moved to the UK in 1966, where he became involved with the British New Wave movement, centred on Michael Moorcock's groundbreaking New Worlds magazine. Sladek began writing SF with 'The Happy Breed', which appeared in Harlan Ellison's seminal anthology Dangerous Visions in 1967, and is now recognized as one of SF's most brilliant satirists. His novels and short story collections include The Muller Fokker Effect, Roderick and Tik Tok, for which he won a BSFA Award. He returned to the United States in 1986, and died there in March 2000.
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