Robopocalypse

Daniel Wilson has imagined a world, our world, just a few years further down the road. Technology is not too far removed from the present day. For all intents and purposes, it is our world. It feels like our world. And one day, the machines of our world—the cars, computers, missiles, tanks, and toys—wake up.

It’s a little bit scary.

No, strike that. It’s very scary. While in many ways reminiscent of a zombie outbreak – albeit instantaneously worldwide and with zombies that look like cars, tanks, robots, and elevators—Robopocalypse is, well, not a zombie book. Rather than the messy destruction of the brain seeking undead, the uprising I surprisingly clean, considering the destruction involved. The robotic slaves of humanity show more clean up after themselves, leaving a tidy wake as they hunt, kill, and destroy mankind. Scenes of a silent and orderly New York City, where the silence is only broken by roving toy helicopters seeking the living, are spooky and eerie. The sudden and inexplicable head-on collision of cars destroying their drivers, or diving headlong into lakes with living occupants is horrifying as any attack of the undead. Perhaps even more so because of the sheer alien feel to the uprising by our own machines.

It’s not a new premise. Both the Terminator series of movies and I, Robot (both book and the movie) are both examples of artificial intelligence run amok. In Robopocalypse, we again see machines take on awareness, but with a descriptiveness and reality set much closer to our own.

With a degree in computer science and another in robotics, Wilson has written several books on robot uprisings and including robots. In Robopocalypse, he creates a story told in an almost documentary style, not unlike the format of World War Z. While using this gimmick might seem to hurt the flow of story or disconnect the reader from any one character, Wilson chooses to focus on just a few individuals and does a wonderful job of quickly building them up without the need for extended page time.

The documentary style also prevents the story from becoming bogged down with transitions and lulls. Instead, the plot jumps to the center of the action, horrific and human, as protagonists survive, die, and fight against their own cars, tools, toys, and machines.

It is vivid, fast paced, and each chapter finishes on a cliff hanger that makes Robopocalypse a page-flipping whirlwind. I picked it up on Friday night and finished it before I returned to my day job on Monday morning. When I did, I was just a little more wary of technology, but regretful that the story had ended.

It’s a fun, fast, and exciting read, if, at moments, horrifying, and I count it as one of my top five reads this year. However, you don’t need to take my word for it. Steven Spielberg agrees, and the word is that he’s making Robopocalypse into a movie for release in 2013. Count me in for opening night tickets. show less

What bothers me most about this book is how utterly defeated humanity is at zero hour and how utterly in control the AI is, and yet the humans still implausibly come back from it. Yes, I know that's the point, but the power disparity is just too great. The AI landed a knockout punch right at the start, and has control over all the tech and all the resources worldwide.

We're talking entire cities where every single car was directly stated to be under the AI's control... and you somehow expect me to believe that a couple people walked in and destroyed a super-duper-important building? And that this one building was doing all the work of "jamming" the satellite system? (What does that even mean?) This is a year or two into the war, and the show more humans hadn't been doing anything with the satellites to this point. Those satellites should be thoroughly hacked under the AI's control by now, or at least have the passwords changed (metaphorically), not ready to become human infrastructure again with one strategic building removal.

We know the AI can communicate with its network of robots. We know it's mobile, with multiple models including humanoid. We know it can learn and interact with its environment. It spent like a year prepping, surely reading everything there is to know on the internet. We know that the vast majority of the world is dead or in labor camps. We know it knows where the resistance centers are: Scouts have been looking at the Osage reservation for a while, and robots have been trying to get into a "castle" in Japan. All it needs to do is send a few of its androids onto a few planes from a few of the military bases that it controls, and go bomb the reservation and castle out of existence. Surely it's had time in those two years to find the relevant top secret manuals on the military bases. They can't fight back against that kind of firepower, and the AI should have it. Oh right, it's too busy enslaving what humans are left and supplying them with superpowers, almost as if you're hoping it'll fall into the resistance's hands. (Oh, right, there's an author and that's exactly what he's doing...)

Too convincing a complete takeover too early. Completely unconvinced by the humans' supposed ability to fight back. show less

I got a feeling this was going to be "that kind of book" from the first few sentences. "That kind of book" being a dudebro book where all the women are barely there and everything is death, shooting and violence with next to no character development. Any development there is involves hurting people, insults, or other displays of machoism.

This is indeed that kind of book. There are only three women at the end of the book. The other disappear or die. The three left over are "fragile pretty" prize that Cormac gets at the end of the book. Mathilda which is the female sidekick that you get in video games that tells you your mission. Doesn't actually DO anything nor have any agency, she is just there to keep the plot moving. The last one is a show more humanoid robot named Michiko. She looks human, the only robot to look human and be gendered female. The rest of the robots are "brothers" and male.
All the black people are either dead or disappeared by the end of the book. They do not help the final push to save the world. Other POC fade off or are mostly killed off. The white edgelord bro gets his moment of glory before dying while the other are killed off in gory ways. There's even a scene where some Osage people leave a Cherokee kid in the middle of some woods swarming with robot to "make him a man". Note the author is a Cherokee citizen. The way the Nomura is portrayed is like a typical weeaboo would do. Japanese peppered through out his passages. "Akuma" which is akin to demon/devil, Senshi which is warrior/soldier, "Anata" which is darling and endearing term for "you". Then 'defense' is spelled exactly like how people who scream "waifu" would say it. "Defensu". It's English, you can make the note that it's English.
It's no wonder that Archos wanted to kill everyone. If this is what humans are going to do and how they write really, they deserve death. Humans are only capable of violence and death.
Also it should be mentioned that men are either called by their name or are called "human/the human". You can guess what women are referred to. "females/the female" . One woman gets a scar and is called "pretty" by the author. It's rather telling how little the women are given any agency past "the female". One senator dies the noble heroic death where she "runs out of stamina to climb a fence" and makes the sacrifice to save her children. Plenty of shitty scenes like that.
As for the book itself, it reads like a bad B movie with scenes of gore being described, guns, things blowing up people dying. You can probably pick any B movie and you'd get the same feel for the story.
Honestly that Ibis book I read had more nuance with the characters, even if all the women were just sad male sexual fantasies. The Izanami book even had a woman that *gasp* was a major player. This book is just sad and pitiful. show less

The robotics expert may write what he knows, but fiction requires characters, plotting and, one hopes, skilled use of language. What I enjoyed in this book would have been better delivered in a short nonfiction piece. As a novel, it was derivative to excess and not much fun. This was Crichton, HAL, and all the technology-run-amok-due-to-hubris stories ever told, and told in mediocrity. One cares little about the characters. I forced myself to finish, like a child eating his peas in order to get dessert. But there was no dessert.

Robopocalypse: Skynet's more human tolerant little brother

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING.

Robopocalypse (Daniel H Wilson) starts in a different position than most machine armageddon stories, beginning 20 minutes after the Humans have won the war with ‘Big Rob’. Our narrator, Cormac ‘Bright Boy’ Wallace is spraying bursts of fire out across the frozen Alaskan tundra to confuse a swarm of mini-bots called stumpers into premature explosion. Stumpers contain compartmentalized chemicals that are mixed when they feel the warmth of a human leg, leading to a debilitating POP and the loss of an appendage.

Bright Boy Squad locates something unexpected in the frozen expanse- a sentient storage device that has been collecting insane amounts of data show more from the world since the activation day of Archos (the AI ). The book follows a similar presentation as World War Z (Max Brooks), depicting the novel as a series of short stories in a historical compilation of key events from pre-war to the end, recorded by the device, and cross commented by Wallace.

Unlike Skynet in the Terminator universe or the variations of Skynet in the novels crafted by SM Stirling, Archos seems to have a level of tolerance for Humans. It has plans for humans that do not include extinction, though a 99% population decrease seems to be in an allowed range. I believe that this is actually worse for humans than annihilation. It opens the door to uncomfortable questions.

Highlight for me was chapter 2, with Archos awakening and it’s path to world connectivity.

Approaching complex technical topics from a simple layman perspective, this should be a very approachable novel for most readers. show less

An original take on robopocalypses (!) that will satisfy scifi readers who enjoy speculative technology and visceral action. Not just another gritty apocalyptic survival epic, this has well-
drawn characters, and interesting plot developments. If there was a "WAR!" category in the Hugos, this would be a contender.

I have a confession: I truly believe that robots and computers will be humankind's downfall. Whether it is through Internet-based terror or because they eventually become cognizant and independent thinkers, that remains to be seen. Something like Terminator or I, Robot will happen. Trust me.

So what am I doing reading a novel about artificial intelligence taking control and plunging the world into a terrifying war? As much as I remain convinced this is a highly probably scenario, I am compelled to read about them. I have not figured out whether it is my subconscious preparing me for the inevitable or whether I am just a glutton for punishment. (I suspect it is a bit of both.) Regardless, I can find enjoyment in such terror, and show more Robopocalypse met that requirement.

The entire "story" is told after the war ends. Surviving soldiers find a black box that contains vignettes of all of the heroes who played a key part in the final showdown. Robopocalypse itself is one soldier's transcriptions of the data contained within the black box, shared for all eternity so that future generations will know the truth. It is an unusual plot device, one that could backfire since the reader knows how the story ends from the very beginning. However, Mr. Wilson is able to make the reader forget the ending through entrancing stories of courage and terror. A reader quickly forgets how the war ends, as the stories showcase the precursors to the uprising and the bleakness of the war. Tension is successfully built even as the story jumps from character to character, around the globe and through time. This is a credit to Mr. Wilson's ability to weave an intricate story with clarity, bridging potential gaps with ease.

One of the more enjoyable, and brilliant, aspects of the story is the cast of characters. These heroes span generations and cultures, from an elderly Japanese gentleman to a little girl forced to experience torture. The entire story is a testament to the strength of humankind and the idea that heroes emerge from the most unlikely of places. It is also a great lesson about never quitting, especially when the situation appears to be impossible.

The biggest issue with Robopocalypse is with the ending of the war. Through all the stories of humans' ability to adapt and overcome the seemingly impossible, their ingenuity and resolve, the final battle of the war is anti-climactic and a complete letdown. It just does not ring true given everything the heroes have had to do to survive to that point.

Robopocalypse has already been earmarked for potential as a movie, with names like Steven Spielberg being bandied about as potential producers. Done correctly, it could be amazing. There are great visuals, albeit rather gory, and the plot itself is intense. It does have the potential for containing too many characters, making it difficult to keep track of them all. However, I suspect that should Steven Spielberg continue with the project, this will become a non-issue.

Now, my husband actually finished reading Robopocalypse before I did, and he was not impressed. As a counterpoint to my gushing, I tried to get him to share his opposing views with you, but he declined. Suffice it to say that he could not understand why I enjoyed it so much, and I fail to understand why he was so dismissive of it!

Thank you of Doubleday Publishing for my review copy! show less