This comic novel about an Englishman lost in the surreal high-tech computer country of America's mid-west describes how the hero Fred Jones goes to America to seek his fortune and ends up with his private life out of control, working for the KGB and people wanting to murder him. Humourist, science fiction novelist, crime writer, sceptical journalist, John Sladek won the London and "Times and " Detective Story Competition, 1972, and the British Science Fiction Award (best novel) for 1983.