BOOK REVIEW: Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson ★★★☆☆
We are in your homes, in your cars, in the skies.
We are coming for you.
We will not be exterminated.
I don’t really know why readers are giving this Sci Fi novel a 1 star and outright attacking this book. Believe me, I’ve read terrible books before and this one isn’t that bad. I’ve heard people say it’s really the Terminator and others claim it's a complete rip-off of Max Brooks World War Z, but instead of zombies it's robots, as well as a post-war assembly of various viewpoints. So to the people that say it’s a rip off – well that’s being a little harsh, I mean how many of us can write a robot novel without it sounding cliché or rip off a well-known story? For example, Stephan King’s It and Dreamcatcher was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Now I wouldn’t call that a rip-off, but an inspiration. Plus I heard Steven Speilberg is making this into a movie and so we’ll see how that goes.
For me, Robopocalypse is kind of like the Terminator but not really like that Terminator. With the Terminator you had Skynet and a robot uprising, killing humankind until John Connor, the saviour, forms the resistance to fight back the machines. Now in this story, the antagonist, the machine Archos R- 14, who takes on the persona of a shy human boy comes online and takes control of the global network. He stars to control machines from transportation to utilities, defence and communication.
In the months leading to the war, irregular malfunctions are noticed by a few unconnected humans. A single mother is unsettled by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toy, an old lonely Japanese bachelor is publically attacked by his domestic love humanoid Mikko, an isolated U.S. soldier in Afghanistan witnesses a robot named SAP one go on a killing spree, all these little glitches adding up to a robot rebellion.
You can tell by reading into the whole artificial intelligence and robotics mechanism side that the author Daniel H. Wilson, who has a Ph.D. in robotics, knows what he is talking about.
This book is set with a common narrator Cormac Wallace, who shares this story of war with you from recollections, footage, and data from other characters in the book. It is here that we are introduced to some key characters that play a huge role in the aftermath of Zero Hour. The concept is fine and the characters are good enough to be shaped for this style of genre and writing. Unlike other readers, I think Wilson captured the character’s individual voice as most of the accounts that Cormac gathers come in a variety of interviews and eye witness journals.
There were some notable characters that I actually liked. The main protagonist Cormac Wallace, who is the second commander of the Brightboy squad is one of the few survivors of robot uprising and the younger brother of the first commander, Jack Wallace. Cormac seemed like an Average Joe kind of hero, but the situation that he is faced with changes him, and at some points questions his humanity which I liked reading into. Then there is Mathilda Perez, a 10-year-old girl and daughter of Congresswoman Laura Perez. She is another character who dramatically changes in the physical sense. I won’t spoil what happens to here but her new ability helps her to communicate with robotic mechanisms around the world. I felt sorry for the Japanese man Takeo Nomura, who has this intimate relationship with a humanoid Mikiko. Then there is one character that I wish Wilson would have expanded on - Paul Blanton, the soldier in Afghanistan who witnesses the robot SAP one go crazy. He then teams up with a civilian Jabbar, forgetting the war and uniting as one to survive the Zero Hour and the New War. Like the other characters, I wanted Wilson to write more about Paul and Jabber because their interaction and alliance was quite interestingly put. They should have their own book.
And of course there is also a good robot and a bad robot. Nine Oh Two is a humanoid robot who is awakened by a transmission by Mikko. He is the first to call himself a freeborn, not knowing which side of the war to be on. Once he teams up with Bright Boy squad, Nine Oh Two has a fighting chance to destroy Archos.
And so finally the antagonist, the rogue A.I named Archos. What’s creepy is that he takes on the form of a boy with this sinister robotic voice (which I had the privileged to hear on the book’s main website). It’s so eerie and chilling that I felt to dislike Archos straight away. Although he caused the New War, his ultimate goal is to replace outdated humanity with advanced technology, rather sick and twisted if you ask me.
Like I said, the book is like Marmite so here are a few things that I personally think could have gone better. Firstly, although I like the characters, I think there were too many and I lost track on some of their narratives. There are roughly five, maybe six characters but they all seem to disappear after part five and the focus is one Cormac. I mean what happened to Mathilda and did her brother Nolan recover from his injuries? And did Jabber and Paul make it out alive over the mountain? Secondly, the narrative seems to be choppy. When some characters reappear, later on, there is a shift from the first person to the third person. Lastly, the ending was a bit cheesy, with Cormac finding love with another survivor named Cherrah, but I think Wilson just added her in for Cormac’s love interest and nothing else.
In conclusion, if you’re into Speilberg’s idea of science fiction movies then Robopocalypse is right up your alley. To me, I’m staying neutral about this book. The characters and the multiple storylines sufficed to actually be a book, but in no way did I hate it. I think Wilson tried his best to give his version of Robot invasion a new format, but I think some parts could have been more developed. This is why I am currently reading the sequel Robogenesis as I hope the characters which I liked come back.
Rating 3/5
Publishers: Doubleday
Publication date: June 7th 2011
Genre: Science Fiction
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