Books like 'Roderick at Random'
Readers who enjoyed Roderick at Random by John Sladek also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
contemporary sc-fi humor robots ai satire
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If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen
Rated: 4.38 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsIf I built a car, it'd be totally new!Here are a few of the things that I'd do. . . .Young Jack is giving an eye-opening tour of the car he'd like to build. There's a snack bar, a pool, and even a robot named Robert to act as chauffeur... -
![Понедельник начинается в субботу. Сказка о Тройке by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky]()
Понедельник начинается в субботу. Сказка о Тройке by Arkady Strugatsky, Boris Strugatsky
Rated: 4.50 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsШедевр русской фантастики!!! Блистающие юмором истории младшего научного сотрудника Александра Привалова стали настольной книгой многих поколений российских читателей.Федор Симеонович Киврин и Витька Корнеев, ведьмочка Стеллочка и профессор Выбегалло,Лавр Федотович и птеродактиль Кузька, пришелец Константин и Клоп Говорун... Герои "Понедельника..." и "Сказки о Тройке" живут среди нас по сей день... -
![Good Old Neon by David Foster Wallace]()
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![The Good Part by Sophie Cousens]()
The Good Part by Sophie Cousens
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsBy the New York Times bestselling author of Just Haven't Met You Yet, a downtrodden twenty-six-year-old wakes up to the life she's always wanted, but is it really a dream come true?At twenty-six, Lucy Young is tired. Tired of fetching coffees for senior TV producers, tired of going on disastrous dates, and definitely tired of living in a damp flat share with flatmates who never buy toilet roll...Categorized as:
humor satire romance contemporary fiction time-travel magical-realism womens-fiction -
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![Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel]()
Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsVincent Spinetti is an archetypal tortured artist ? a sensitive young writer who falls victim to alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love... -
![Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith]()
Love in the Time of Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe latest installment in the delightful 44 Scotland Street series finds all our favorite residents up to their usual hilarious hijinks. In the microcosm of 44 Scotland Street, all of life's richness is found in the glorious goings-on of its residents... -
![Roadkill by Dennis E. Taylor]()
Roadkill by Dennis E. Taylor
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThree 20-somethings are all that stands between an otherworldly threat and the survival of Earth in the latest thrill ride by Dennis E. Taylor, author of the Audible and New York Times best-selling Bobiverse series.Jack Kernigan is having a bad day...a bad year...a bad life. After being booted out of MIT, he’s back in his Ohio hometown, working for the family business, facing a life of mediocrity... -
![Bolo! by David Weber]()
Bolo! by David Weber
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 15 ratingsControlled by their tireless electronic brains which were programmed to admit no possibility of defeat, the gigantic robot tanks known as Bolos were almost indestructible, and nearly unstoppable... -
![The Voyage of the Sable Keech by Neal Asher]()
The Voyage of the Sable Keech by Neal Asher
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSable Keech is a walking dead man, and the only one to have been resurrected by nanochanger. Did he succeed because he was infected by the Spatterjay virus, or because he came late to resurrection in a tank of seawater? An ancient hive mind, almost incomprehensible to the human race, has sent an agent to this uncertain world... -
![The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin]()
The Yellow Arrow by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe main character, Andrei, is a passenger aboard the Yellow Arrow, who begins to despair over the trains ultimate destination and looks for a way out as the chapters count down. Indifferent to their fate, the other passengers carry on as usual — trading in nickel melted down fro the carriage doors, attending the Upper Bunk avant-garde theatre, and leafing through Pasternak’s Early Trains... -
![Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman]()
Boy + Bot by Ame Dyckman
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsOne day, a boy and a robot meet in the woods. They play. They have fun.But when Bot gets switched off, Boy thinks he's sick. The usual remedies—applesauce, reading a story—don't help, so Boy tucks the sick Bot in, then falls asleep.Bot is worried when he powers on and finds his friend powered off. He takes Boy home with him and tries all his remedies: oil, reading an instruction manual... -
![Better than Life by Grant Naylor]()
Better than Life by Grant Naylor
Rated: 4.04 of 5 stars · 24 ratingsA wild and wacky SF series--based on the popular BBC-TV series--reminiscent of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Lister--who passed out drunk in London and awakened in a locker on a moon of Saturn--now finds himself trapped in a computer game that transports players to the perfect world of their imaginations--a game people are literally dying to play... -
![Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling]()
Qualityland by Marc-Uwe Kling
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 39 ratingsIn the near future sci-fi world of Qualityland, algorithms help create an idyllic life for its citizens, but what if the perfect world wasn't built for you?Welcome to QualityLand, the best country on Earth. Here, a universal ranking system determines the social advantages and career opportunities of every member of society... -
![In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders]()
In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThe stories In Persuasion Nation are easily his best work yet. "The Red Bow,"about a town consumed by pet-killing hysteria, won a 2004 National Magazine Award and "Bohemians," the story of two supposed Eastern European widows trying to fit in in suburban USA, is included in The Best American Short Stories 2005... -
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![Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson]()
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories by Kevin Wilson
Rated: 4.09 of 5 stars · 27 ratingsKevin Wilson's characters inhabit a world that moves seamlessly between the real and the imagined, the mundane and the fantastic. "Grand Stand-In" is narrated by an employee of a Nuclear Family Supplemental Provider—a company that supplies "stand-ins" for families with deceased, ill, or just plain mean grandparents... -
![Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders]()
Liberation Day: Stories by George Saunders
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 20 ratingsMacArthur genius and Booker Prize winner George Saunders returns with a collection of short stories that make sense of our increasingly troubled world, his first since the New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist Tenth of DecemberThe "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the... -
![Cyborg by William F. Wu]()
Cyborg by William F. Wu
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsA man without a memory, trapped in a city of robots gone wild. At his side, a mysterious woman who claims to know his identity but refuses to tell him. Together, they must find an insane cyborg stalking the streets of Robot City, a time bomb indistinguishable from the ordinary robots... -
![How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth]()
How to Buy a Planet by D.A. Holdsworth
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe Earth has been sold to aliens. What could possibly go wrong?It’s the Year 2024. Drowning in debt following the pandemic and facing ruin, the world's leaders have taken the only logical decision.They’ve sold the planet... -
![We Have Lost The Chihuahuas by Paul Mathews]()
We Have Lost The Chihuahuas by Paul Mathews
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsLondon, 2046. The British Republic has a new First Lady. She’s Californian, ‘in-your-face, for sure’ and she’s got big plans for a Buckingham Palace refurb. When her three Chihuahuas go missing, one man is determined to avoid getting dragged into it all. His name is Pond. Howie Pond – presidential spokesperson, retired secret agent and cat lover... -
![Robots Have No Tails by Henry Kuttner, F. Paul Wilson]()
Robots Have No Tails by Henry Kuttner, F. Paul Wilson
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsHounded by creditors and heckled by an uncooperative robot, binge-drinking inventor Galloway Gallegher must solve the mystery of his own machines before his dodgy financing and reckless lifestyle catch up with him! This complete collection of Kuttner's five classic "Gallegher" stories presents the author at the height of his imaginative genius... -
![The Turing Test by Chris Beckett]()
The Turing Test by Chris Beckett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThese 14 stories contain, among other things, robots, alien planets, genetic manipulation and virtual reality, but their centre focuses on individuals rather than technology, and how they deal with love and loneliness, authenticity, reality and what it really means to be human... -
![I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin]()
I'm Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsA standalone darkly humorous thriller set in modern America's age of anxiety, by New York Times bestselling author Jason Pargin.Outside Los Angeles, a driver pulls up to find a young woman sitting on a large black box. She offers him $200,000 cash to transport her and that box across the country, to Washington, DC.But there are rules:He cannot look inside the box.He cannot ask questions... -
![Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.]()
Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsLook at the Birdie is a collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction... -
![S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin]()
S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsDamilola Karpov is a pilot. Living in Byzantium, a huge sky city floating above the land of Urkaine, he makes his living as a drone pilot - capable of being a cameraman who records the events unfolding in Urkaine or, with the weapons aboard his drone, of making a newsworthy event happen for his employers: 'Big Byz Media'.His recordings are known as S.N.U.F.F... -
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![Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy by Matt Ruff]()
Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy by Matt Ruff
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsHigh above Manhattan android and human steelworkers are constructing a new Tower of Babel for billionaire Harry Gant, as a monument to humanity’s power to dream. In the festering sewers below a darker game is afoot: a Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Gant’s crusading ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why... -
![The Authorities™ by Scott Meyer]()
The Authorities™ by Scott Meyer
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSinclair Rutherford is a young Seattle cop with a taste for the finer things. Doing menial tasks and getting hassled by superiors he doesn't respect are definitely not “finer things... -
![Up and Down by Terry Fallis]()
Up and Down by Terry Fallis
Rated: 3.93 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsOn his first day at Turner King, David Stewart quickly realizes that the world of international PR (affectionately, known as "the dark side") is a far cry from his previous job with the Canadian government. For one, he missed the office memo on the all-black dress code; for another, there are enough acronyms and jargon to make his head spin... -
![Refuge by Rob Chilson]()
Refuge by Rob Chilson
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA man without memory, in a city of robots gone wild. At his side, a mysterious woman whose own identity he has reconstructed, and whose memories of him may be true or false. The young man calls himself Derec. In the shattering climax to his quest he discovers the shocking secret of his true identity. Tormented by a nightmarish disease, Derec must face the genius Dr... -
![Prodigy by Arthur Byron Cover]()
Prodigy by Arthur Byron Cover
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA man without memory, stranded in a strange city of robots...For the young man known as Derec and the young woman known as Ariel, a robot killer is the most dangerous puzzle to emerge from Robot City's cybernetic society... -
![Perihelion by William F. Wu]()
Perihelion by William F. Wu
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsA man without memory, in a city of robots gone wild. At his side, a mysterious woman whose own identity he has reconstructed, and whose memories of him may be true or false. The young man calls himself Derec. In the shattering climax to his quest he discovers the shocking secret of his true identity. Tormented by a nightmarish disease, Derec must face the genius Dr... -
![Dog Logic by Tom Strelich]()
Dog Logic by Tom Strelich
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsIf "Dr. Strangelove" and "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" got together and had a litter of puppies you'd get "Dog Logic", a duck-and-cover fable and love story. Funny, inflammatory, and weirdly propheticHertell Daggett is the divorced and damaged caretaker of a failing pet cemetery on the outskirts of Bakersfield, and he's just discovered a lost civilization... -
![Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews]()
Delete All Suspects by Donna Andrews
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAfter a hit-and-run leaves Eddie, a young techie, in the hospital, his grandmother hires Artificial Intelligence Personality Turing’s friend Tim to look closely at Eddie’s business, which he runs out of their computer-filled basement... -
![A History of the Island by Eugene Vodolazkin]()
A History of the Island by Eugene Vodolazkin
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMonks devious and devout – and an age-defying royal pair – chronicle the history of their fictional island in this witty critique of Western civilization and history itself.Eugene Vodolazkin, internationally acclaimed novelist and scholar of medieval literature, returns with a satirical parable about European and Russian history, the myth of progress, and the futility of war...Categorized as:
satire humor fiction historical-fiction audiobook literary-fiction alternate-history contemporary -
![Sky Daddy by Kate Folk]()
Sky Daddy by Kate Folk
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSubversive and unexpectedly heartwarming, Sky Daddy hijacks the classic love story, exploring desire, fate, and the longing to be accepted for who we truly are.Linda is doing her best to lead a life that would appear normal to the casual observer... -
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![Hard Wired by Len Vlahos]()
Hard Wired by Len Vlahos
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsFrom Morris finalist Len Vlahos comes a contemporary sci-fi story about a boy who might not be human—for fans of Westworld and Black Mirror.Quinn thinks he’s a normal boy with an average life. That is, until he finds a trail of clues the father he barely knew left behind.After Quinn unravels his father’s puzzles, he “wakes up” ... and realizes his world was nothing more than a virtual construct... -
![Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi]()
Vapor by Amanda Filipacchi
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSoon to be a major motion picture directed by Neil LaBute and starring Renee Zellweger, this is a surreal love story from the author of Nude Men. Now in paperback, Amanda Filipacchi's quirky comic romance gives aspiring actress Anna Graham a makeover that no reader will ever forget... -
![The Snake Oil Wars or Scheherazade Ginsberg Strikes Again by Parke Godwin]()
The Snake Oil Wars or Scheherazade Ginsberg Strikes Again by Parke Godwin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBarion and Coyul are at it again... This time, they've been discovered toying with evolution. Barion has been summoned back to answer to the Council for their transgressions and Coyul is left behind to clean up the mess.. -
![A.S.H.E.R. by Kallysten]()
A.S.H.E.R. by Kallysten
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsDear Author,Tell me about a day in the life of this sexbot. Maybe it’s the day he’s first been unpacked and settled into his new home! Maybe it’s sometime after he’s settled into a routine... -
![How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton]()
How Best to Avoid Dying by Owen Egerton
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratings[i]Lazarus Dying[/i]: the man Jesus raised from the dead is alive and living in New York City. [i]The Fecalist[/i]: an author whose best selling work is his latest poop. [i]Christmas[/i]: she loves you, you love her, she has a gun in your mouth. Welcome to the award-winning short fiction of Owen Egerton... -
![The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky]()
The Lake Wobegon Virus by Garrison Keillor, Richard Dworsky
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsBestselling author and humorist Garrison Keillor returns to one of America's most beloved mythical towns, beset by a contagion of alarming candor. A mysterious virus has infiltrated the good people of Lake Wobegon, transmitted via unpasteurized cheese made by a Norwegian bachelor farmer, the effect of which is episodic loss of social inhibition... -
![The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin]()
The Hall of the Singing Caryatids by Victor Pelevin
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAfter auditioning for the part as a singing geisha at a dubious bar, Lena and eleven other “lucky” girls are sent to work at a posh underground nightclub reserved exclusively for Russia’s upper-crust elite. They are to be a sideshow attraction to the rest of the club’s entertainment, and are billed as the “famous singing caryatids.” Things only get weirder from there... -
![Mania by Lionel Shriver]()
Mania by Lionel Shriver
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsSet in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel from the New York Times bestselling author about a lifelong friendship threatened by the Culture Wars. In an alternative 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence... -
![The Love Interest by Helen Comerford]()
The Love Interest by Helen Comerford
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA swoony, speculative and entirely electric YA debut with a humorous and satirical take on the conventions of the superhero-verse, for fans of Michelle Quach's Not Here To Be Liked and the Marvel Universe.Seventeen-year-old Jenna Ray has just been saved by the world's newest superhero, Blaze. And, in the eyes of the public, that means one thing: Jenna Ray has been cast as the Love Interest.No... -
![The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez]()
The Automatic Detective by A. Lee Martinez
Rated: 3.94 of 5 stars · 31 ratingsEven in Empire City, a town where weird science is the hope for tomorrow, it’s hard for a robot to make his way. It’s even harder for a robot named Mack Megaton, a hulking machine designed to bring mankind to its knees. But Mack’s not interested in world domination... -
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![Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson]()
Set My Heart To Five by Simon Stephenson
Rated: 3.83 of 5 stars · 12 ratings‘You shall read this with unadulterated pleasure’ Scotland on Sunday‘A beautiful, funny, heartfelt analysis of what it means to be human’ Simon Pegg Set in a 2054 where humans have locked themselves out of the internet and Elon Musk has incinerated the moon, Set My Heart To Five is the hilarious yet profoundly moving story of one android’s emotional awakening... -
![Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison]()
Spider Kiss by Harlan Ellison
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsHe claims he's not a fan of rock-and-roll, but somehow Harlan Ellison's seminal novel based on the career of Jerry Lee Lewis ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. One of the first -- and still one of the best -- dissections of the wildly destructive rock-and-roll lifestyle, Spider Kiss isn't about giant cockroaches that attack Detroit or space invaders that smell like chicken soup... -
![Povídky o vlasti by Dmitry Glukhovsky]()
Povídky o vlasti by Dmitry Glukhovsky
Rated: 3.80 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsRuská satira má hluboké kořeny. Již sám název této knihy je ironickým odkazem na podobnou sovětskou tradici malých, povětšinou oslavných próz. Autor však píše o zcela jiné vlasti, než byla ta sovětská, a jeho povídky mají leckdy podobu politických thrillerů. Z různých úhlů rentgenuje ruskou „demokracii“ z počátku 90... -
![Waiting for the Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin]()
Waiting for the Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsImagine two brothers off on an intergalatic Spring Break. When their friends leave them behind on Earth, they've got a few millenia to kill before they'll manage to get back to school. So, as an experiment, mind you, they decide to give evolution a bit of a nudge... And that's when all hell breaks loose... a little more literally than either of them planned.. -
![Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang]()
Immaculate Conception by Ling Ling Huang
Rated: 3.89 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsWhat if you could enter the mind of the person you love the most? Enka meets Mathilde in art school and is instantly drawn to her. Mathilde makes art that feels truly original, and Enka—trying hard to prove herself in this fiercely competitive world—pours everything into their friendship... -
![Arhanghelul Raul by Ovidiu Eftimie]()
Arhanghelul Raul by Ovidiu Eftimie
Rated: 3.75 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsRaul, un publicitar din București, nu bănuia că atunci când va muri va ajunge în Iad. Și nici că de acolo se va întoarce pe Pământ nemuritor și cu misiunea de a preveni Apocalipsa: invazia nemuritorilor prin gaura spațio-temporală din gara de la Teiuș...
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