Things proceed swiftly from that point. Tik-Tok tells of his life on two tracks. One track moves forward from his first crime, as he builds a career as an artist, businessman, criminal mastermind, and, inevitably, politician, all the while killing as many people as he can, in gruesome and imaginative ways when possible, while also working for robot civil rights. The other track traces his early life, from his first job as a domestic servant at a Southern plantation (the obvious parallels are not unintentional, to say the least), through a series of subsequent assignments: in a restaurant, on a spaceship, in various scrap heaps etc.  Sladek describes the various human and robot characters with gleeful cynicism. The book is on the one hand thoroughly funny, in its very black fashion; and on the other hand a biting criticism of human failures. It isn't perfect, for a couple of reasons. One fault is the incoherent and inconsistent plot: it's more a sequence of very imaginative and funny sketches, than a logically worked out narrative. The other fault is the unrelieved cynicism: all the characters, without exception, are evil, amoral, and unlikable (Tik-Tok most certainly included). This is certainly part of the point, but it does pall on the reader: and after all, it's basically false: not all people are as bad as this book portrays them. The greatest satires (of any length, anyway) retain some feeling for humanity, in sorrow as well as anger, as it were: this book is enjoyable but falls short of greatness because at the end we don't care what happens.

Let's emphasize, however, how funny the book is at its peaks. Sladek was a maniacally inventive writer: the various murders, the various depravities, the wacky schemes of all the characters, are very entertaining. Tik-Tok is fun to read, and quite pointed as well, and it's another much appreciated rerelease from the folks at Victor Gollancz.