The Steam-Driven Boy is John Sladek's first collection of brilliant, eccentric, darkly satirical and downright weird science fiction stories. As a bonus it includes his parodies of SF authors, uproariously spoofing Asimov (and the Laws of Robotics), Ballard, Bradbury, Dick, Poe, Cordwainer Smith, and more.

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L'Effet Müller-Fokker

Pour les établissements Wompler, spécialistes de la poupée mécanique, les temps s'annonçaient difficiles. Aussi le projet P 32 fut-il d'autant plus providentiel qu'il était financé par le Pentagone. Il fallait mettre au point une machine capable de se reproduire elle-même. Mais les petites boîtes grises qui sortiront de l'ordinateur Quidnac échapperont très vite au contrôle de leur créateur. D'une fécondité prodigieuse, elles sont, en outre, affligées d'une boulimie métallique insatiable, dévorant les ponts, les tanks, les avions, les imprimeries, les quincailleries.Déjà la terreur règne dans le Nevada. Les Etats-Unis vacillent.Le monde entier sera-t-il bientôt rongé par ce gigantesque cancer métallique ?

Mécasme

Tik-Tok

Wholly Smokes was the last book completed by one of the most original, brilliant and under-rated American writers of the 20th century. Like so many of John Sladek's earlier books, this is almost impossible to categorize. It's the non-fiction or non-fact history of General Snuff and Tobacco, a very American tobacco company which seems to have been present at, or had bizarre influence on, many great and not-so-great moments of history. 
John Sladek provides his own indescribable clip-art illustrations. As he says in the Introduction:
"The story of GST is also the story of the Badcock family, who owned and operated the company throughout its magnificent history. This book follows that history, stopping to explore a few of its more dazzling events. You will meet the Badcock who kidnapped Pocahontas, the Badcock
who burned London, the Badcock who started the American Revolution, the Badcock who almost killed a president, the Badcock who delivered the real Gettysburg address, the Badcock who wanted to prolong World War One (because he was doing so well out of it), the Badcock who tried to bribe Roosevelt, the Badcock who tried to kill Fidel Castro, and many others . . ."

Wholly Smokes

Thackery Phin, the delightfully eccentric American University philosopher turned detective, is attracted to the headquarters of a spiritualistic group and the beginning of his second case.When a rock star is killed after trying to levitate from a fourth story window, and another member disappears behind a locked door while demonstrating astral projection, Phin begins to suspect that the members of the society may be involved in something far blacker than seances.The curse of an Egyptian amulet, a dark seance parlor, lurking death in an orgone box, psychic poison and live burial--Sladek's brainteaser fairly creeps with fiendish happenings.

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Résumé

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