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Loading... Robopocalypse (2011)by Daniel H. Wilson
 pussreboots | Apr 24, 2013 |  This book was great. I really enjoyed it! It has a little "Terminator" feel as you might expect, but it is quite different. I was a bit concerned after reading a not so flattering review mentioning the format. The story is told from various points of view, chapter by chapter as chronicled by a soldoer after tbe war. But, personally I really enjoyed the way the story was told. My only negative was the fact tnat the author sometimes changed from first person to third person, or vice versa, what seemed like arbitrarily at times. This was a little confusing now and then. Otherwise, I loved this book and recommend it to anyone who might like the genre. (  ) Ameliapei | Apr 18, 2013 | Read on May 15, 2011 Super fun read. It's a combination of World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (instead of survivor stories, it's heroes), Transformers (an allspark-like thing), Terminator (minus the time travel), The Passage (end of the world, plus a cross country journey - though this is a much faster read). If you like any of the above mentioned stuff, you'll like this book...plus, read it now before the movie starts casting. Steven Spielberg is already scheduled to direct the film! (  ) melissarochelle | Apr 10, 2013 | Robopocalypse is basically World War Z, but with robots instead of zombies. I'm afraid that's probably a spoiler. That's the way it's told and the tone of it and everything else, except it's not quite as global as World War Z. At first I was quite absorbed -- I was especially interested in Mr Takeo Nomura and Mikiko, but most of the story revolved around the USA, which gets... wearing. To its credit, it did involve Native Americans in a prominent role, though I have no idea how well those aspects were handled. I've also seen a more subtle robots-achieve-awareness-and-their-creators-are-frightened-and-try-to-kill-them storyline fairly recently, where things aren't as morally clear cut. It's called Mass Effect, and the third game is particularly relevant, and it is well worth playing. (Except, for my lights, just turn the game off before the end of it. There's a reason I own this shirt.) The issue of the geth vs. the quarians is one I was very glad to explore because the game allowed subtlety: this book sort of does, in that you end up with part-robot people and robots who achieve a separate state of awareness and can oppose the evil bad robots, but the fact that you clearly have evil bad robots kind of ruins that. Also, this isn't really a novel. The only characters I really cared about were Mr Takeo Nomura and Laura Perez's family, and even then, the style of the book makes it difficult to be really invested. (  ) shanaqui | Apr 9, 2013 | Well, okay, I mean, I didn't have a terrible time reading it. It was a little fun. Just atrociously written, though. You know how with some authors - Stephen King does this to me - every once in a while a passage will just be sortof awkward, so you wince a little? Well, Wilson is no Stephen King. (And besides, this whole thing could have been totally avoided if everyone had just bought robot insurance. Come on, people.) You ever read World War Z? This is that book with robots instead of zombies. And not as competently written. It's super loud and super dumb. I feel like giving it more or less than three stars would be thinking too much about it. (  ) AlCracka | Apr 2, 2013 |
 Wilson also sets up images of grand terror, then doesn’t know what to do with them; he’s too focused on his central storyline of how the war was lost, then won. Brief mentions of terrifying work camps where robots experiment on humans don’t get much weight, and the book spends minimal time explaining how independent human communities function in the post-robot-uprising world. It’s telling that the book’s best section—a brief tale of men sent to the remote wilderness to drill a hole, realizing they’re there at the behest of the devil himself—ends with broad fatalities.  There’s an unfortunate sameness to the characters, whether rough-and-ready brothers in their 30s (there’s an inside joke here to Wilson’s 2010 battling-brothers book Bro-Jitsu) or an 11-year-old girl with an unlikely role to play in the proceedings or a battle android unaffiliated with either side (another inside joke, to a toy the author bought on the night of his first date with his now wife) who surely will star in the book’s sequel. Maybe there’s a message in this sameness, that humanity is itself a character to be celebrated, just as perhaps all technology, every buttoned and Bluetoothed object that makes our life easier, is to be scrutinized and respected.  Still, Robopocalypse was an enjoyable read, well worth the wait. It’s got a great plot and villain and conversations between man and machine that really made me think. Some will likely label it a cautionary tale, but I won’t go that far.  It's more than just a screenplay, though, and worth the time to read. There are a few beautiful moments of writing throughout "Robopocalypse" that make it a worthy addition to the canon of robot apocalypse books, movies and comics that have come before. It's worth reading before Spielberg's version of Robopocalypse hits screens in 2013 — and before the army of factory-built roboclones starts to arrive. B+
Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0385533853, Hardcover)Amazon Best Books of the Month, June 2011:In the not-too-distant future, robots have made our lives a lot easier: they help clean our kitchens, drive our cars, and fight our wars--until they are turned into efficient murderers by a sentient artificial intelligence buried miles below the surface of Alaska. Robopocalypse is a fast-paced sci-fi thriller that makes a strong case that mindless fun can also be wildly inventive. The war is told as an oral history, assembled from interviews, security camera footage, and first- and secondhand testimonies, similar to Max Brook's zombie epic World War Z. The book isn't shy about admitting to its influences, but author Daniel H. Wilson certainly owes more to Terminator than he does to Asimov. (A film adaptation is already in pre-production, with Steven Spielberg in the director's chair and a release date slated for 2013.) Robopocalypse may not be the most unique tale about the war between man and machine, but it's certainly one of the most fun. --Kevin Nguyen Guest Reviewer: Robert Crais Robert Crais is the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award and the author of many New York Times bestsellers, including The Watchman, Chasing Darkness, The First Rule, and The Sentry. Robopocalypse is as good as Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain or Jurassic Park, and I do not invoke Mr. Crichton's name lightly. Daniel Wilson’s novel is an end of the world story about a coming machine-versus-man war. You know the reader's cliché: “I couldn't stop turning the pages”? So shoot me--I couldn't. Started on a Friday afternoon, finished Sunday morning, and I'm slow. My daughter finished it in a single night, and then my wife. My wife hates science fiction, but she loved this book. Set in a future only a few weeks away, the world is still our world, where advancements in silicon-chip technology and artificial intelligence have given us rudimentary android laborers and cars that can get around without human drivers. The war begins the fourteenth time a scientist named Nicholas Wasserman wakes an amped-up artificial intelligence dubbed Archos. In a protected lab environment designed to contain his creation, Wasserman has awakened the sentient computer intelligence thirteen previous times, always with the same result: Archos realizes that it loves that rarest of miracles—life--above all else, and to preserve life on Earth, it must destroy mankind. This wasn't exactly what Wasserman wanted to hear, so thirteen times before, a disappointed Wasserman killed it and returned to the drawing board. But unlike Archos, Wasserman is a man, and men make mistakes. Now, on this fourteenth awakening, a simple (but believable) error by the scientist allows Archos to escape the barrier of the lab. And the war is on. When Archos goes live, its control spreads like a virus as it reprograms the everyday devices of our lives, from cell phones to ATM machines to traffic lights to airliners. A normally benign "Big Happy" domestic robot murders a cook in a fast-food joint. A safety and pacification robot (think of an overgrown Ken doll with a dopey grin, designed to win hearts and minds) used by the army in Afghanistan (yes, we're still there) goes bad and kills dozens of people. And, in a particularly creepy scene, “smart toys” wake in their toy boxes at night to deliver ominous messages to children. The book is rich with high-speed-action set pieces and evocative, often frightening imagery (smart cars stalking pedestrians; human corpses reanimated by machines into zombie warriors), but Robopocalype is a terrific and affecting read because it is about human beings we can relate to, invest in, and root for. Among them: Cormac Wallace, a young photojournalist who escapes Boston at Zero Hour (the moment when Archos unleashes its machine army against humankind), and fights his way across the United States as the leader of a band of guerrillas known as the Brightboy squad. Takeo Nomura, a lonely technician in love with an android “love doll” named Mikiko, who, when she is reprogrammed by Archos, is driven by his love and sadness to fix her, an effort that will ultimately help turn the tide of the war. And Lurker, a pissed-off hacker and phone pranker furiously determined to identify the mysterious person who is taking the credit for his elaborate pranks . . . only to find himself in Archos's crosshairs and running for his life. Little by little, the discoveries they (and others) make and the battles they fight lead to locating Archos, and the final battle for humanity's survival. By choosing to show us these events through the eyes of the men and women involved, Wilson gives us a high-speed, real-time history of the war on its most human level, and it is our investment in these characters and their desperate struggle that grabs us and pulls us along at a furious clip. In lesser hands, the story could have been head-shot with pseudo-science technical jargon, overwrought explanation, and cartoonish characterizations. Instead, Wilson has given us a richly populated and thrilling novel that celebrates life and humanity, and the power of the human heart . . . even if that heart beats in a machine. (retrieved from Amazon Thu, 14 Feb 2013 13:41:01 -0500) |
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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That something who goes on to call himself Archos, goes on to control all the computerized technology that is wirelessly connected. The first part of the book outlines how Archos tests the computer technology, slowly but surely building his network and his army.
Humans across the world start to take notice and the book follows a few of the major heroes of the human / robot wars. The action jumps from place to place but in chronological order. The different transcripts are set up by Cormac Wallace. As these were chapters were set up to be audio transcripts, listening to the book on audio (even performed by a solo actor) made sense.
For me Robopocalypse was long needed slap to the three laws of robotics. While early on there is some naive trust of the machinery and robots, the most observant of the humans begin to put two and two together. Robots, like any other software driven thing, can be hacked.
Like Hiromu Arakawa's Fullmetal Alchemist, unusual alliances develop as the war progresses. In place of the homunculi, there are the man made robots and other computer driven technology. Then there come the chimera, or in this case, the transhumans. Finally, like Grin and Selim, there are those robots who supersede their original programming and begin to act on their own. With their free will comes a chance to co-exist with the transhumans and humans. (