If you liked TV comedy series Newsradio, you might like this
book. The British writer Fred Jones goes to America in
search of his fortune and is mistakenly hired as a software
engineer in a company that develops a battle robot for the
military. However, things at the firm seem pretty confused,
for exampled, Fred is sacked and re-hired almost every day,
the developers of the robot have most extraordinary ideas
about it - and one of them is a deranged mass murderer. The
robot itself does not seem to know if it is a battle robot
or a philosopher, playing endlessly with words and meanings.
A bunch of spies from different countries are of course
after the secrets of the robot and try to buy every member
of the company in turn. A female Russian agent makes Fred a
tempting offer but only promises to pay in rubles. Gullible
Fred throws away a big check sent by a Japanese agent but
finally rescues it from the garbage and
offers it as a
compensation to the guy he replaced in the company. The guy
uses the money to found a company for producing little toy
robots and offers Fred a share in it, but finally the robots
prove dangerous and the company goes bankrupt. Fred seems to
be one of the eternal loosers who just never quite make it.
The author, who is of Midwestern origin, does not seem to
appreciate his home country too much. He pictures it as the
promised land of plastic and supermarkets. The absurd and
sinister mood of the book is accentuated by recurring news
of poisoned medicines and restaurant shooting and the
endless ads: 'You may already have won million dollars...'
This is not a typical sci-fi book but more of a satire
characterized with its own kind of wry and black humour,
worth reading if you happen to like the genre.