The book received an early German translation as Der Müller-Fokker-Effekt (1970), published by W. Gebühr and was also translated into French as L'Effet Müller-Fokker (1974) and published by Éditions Opta.

Locus Editor Charles N. Brown described it as "a Vonnegut-type black humor novel that starts out very well but goes on much too long with much too much crammed into it." However, he said "the first 100 pages are really excellent." Analog Science Fiction and Fact critic P. Schuyler Miller noted "it was like Ron Goulart's farces, only with more cutting edge—let's say, Goulart programmed by a Swift tape." In 1970 the public reception of the book however was low, and Sladek stopped writing science fiction novels that decade.