Book description
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 . . ."
John Sladek (1937 - 2000) John Sladek was born in Iowa in 1937 but moved
to the UK in 1966, where he became involved with the British New Wave
movement, centred on Michael Moorcock's groundbreaking New Worlds
magazine. Sladek began writing SF with 'The Happy Breed', which appeared
in Harlan Ellison's seminal anthology Dangerous Visions in 1967, and is
now recognized as one of SF's most brilliant satirists. His novels and
short story collections include The Muller Fokker Effect, Roderick and
Tik Tok, for which he won a BSFA Award. He returned to the United States
in 1986, and died there in March 2000.
