Just Couldn’t Finish Reading: Naked Came the Robot by Barry B. Longyear (FP: 1988) [214pp]

The nuclear war was really the last straw. When the radioactive dust had settled the protesters shouted out their message: “No more War”. But both sides – The Americans and the Soviets – had the same problem. With only 10% of their populations dead but their economies destroyed they needed to do something to keep their side in the fight – but without actual fighting. The answer? Welfare for the people and Robots for the economy. Within a few years it was all humming along nicely. The general population were quiet and the few humans still in the economy were doing very nicely thank you. But all was not as advertised in the new Cold War economy as new young executive Henry Fleming was about to find out. Joining the Economy on the eve of an expected Soviet victory he discovers that the robot economy is a mess of strikes and civil unrest and that being caught up in a riot is only the start of his problems.

OK, I admit I was somewhat cautious about this from the get-go. I’d read a few books by this author before and, although they were rather ‘weird’ at times I enjoyed them. This, however, was pretty much dross after only a few chapters. How I managed to get around 100 pages in before abandoning it I’m not exactly sure. It was an interesting concept that could have been a fun read. Some of the plays on words and silliness did in fact make me chuckle but overall it quickly became clear that the author was literally making shit up as he went along and what might have been an entertaining surreal adventure just became a total farce. Now my second DNF of the year, but hopefully my last! Avoid.