from "Tik-Tok"

2024.11.24
John Sladek's "Tik-Tok" is broad societal-parody sci-fi featuring a murderous robot - what if the 3 Laws of Robotics were just a suggestion...
Some Eastern mystic, currently in vogue with his teletext aphorisms, wrote, 'Metal cuts meat, but does not comprehend it.' Who cares? I thought. Sometimes cutting was enough.
John Sladek, "Tik-Tok"

Hornby had pushed his plate back and was lighting a cigarino as he explained to the company his theory of supply and demand in the Art market:
'Just give them what they want, in the orifice they specify.'
Various orifices emitted chuckles. Jockeline said, 'Hornby, sometimes I suspect you have an artistic bone in your body.'
John Sladek, "Tik-Tok"

two words stuck together like two honeymooners, like the two pieces of animated meat now waving goodbye from the car as they drive off. On their honeymoon, where they can be pure meat trying to create more of itself. Meat wants to overpopulate the earth and destroy it, that is meat's goal.