2008 books

[peteryoung]

67) John Sladek, Alien Accounts, 1982  ( RE-READ )
Six stories, not about aliens and more about accountants, as well as the alienating effects of office life and other ways in which people voluntarily box themselves in. In the particular way Sladek takes things to extremes, clearest of all is the kaleidoscopic office politics of the masterfully absurd 'Masterson and the Clerks', and his view of the stressed psychic researchers of 'Scenes from the Country of the Blind' is almost sympathetic, in spite of Sladek's own scepticism. And going further into the ridiculous are his own versions of highly intimidating office forms... this isn't Sladek's best collection but certainly it's one of his best-themed.