Robopocalypse by Daniel H Wilson - Revision history

Sue at 09:59, 26 October 2023

2023-10-26T09:59:04Z

Sue at 14:40, 1 April 2018

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Sue at 13:18, 11 December 2014

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Sue at 17:43, 31 May 2011

2011-05-31T17:43:28Z

Sue: Created page with '{{infobox |title=Robopocalypse |sort=Robopocalypse |author=Daniel H Wilson |reviewer=John Lloyd |genre=Science Fiction |summary=This man-against-machine fight story has flashes o…'

2011-05-31T17:39:15Z

Created page with '{{infobox |title=Robopocalypse |sort=Robopocalypse |author=Daniel H Wilson |reviewer=John Lloyd |genre=Science Fiction |summary=This man-against-machine fight story has flashes o…'

New review

{{infobox
|title=Robopocalypse
|sort=Robopocalypse
|author=Daniel H Wilson
|reviewer=John Lloyd
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=This man-against-machine fight story has flashes of brilliance, but leaves them behind too readily for standard combat action scenes. Still, much better than the title suggests...
|rating=3.5
|buy=Maybe
|borrow=Yes
|paperback=0857204149
|hardback=0857204122
|audiobook=
|ebook=B0050N3ARW
|pages=368
|publisher=Simon and Schuster
|date=June 2011
|isbn=978-0857204127
|website=http://www.danielhwilson.com/
|video=uXis7Kie0x0
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857204122</amazonuk>
|amazonus=<amazonus>0857204122</amazonus>
}}

Rob is out to kill us all, and is going to take some beating. He already has many advantages, and can adapt easily where he finds a fault in his plans. He already has most of us dead, or in concentration camps. Rob is the generic nickname for all robot-kind, all controlled by one supreme Artificial Intelligence, who is set on eradication of our species.

The first part of this novel sets the stall out in almost linked short story fashion, as we see the robot/human relationship sour. A domestic servant turns the fetching of a frozen yoghurt into carnage. A young girl has reason to fear her techno-dolls. But while these are artistic, considered, multi-faceted pieces of jigsaw, the rest of the book is us watching the puzzle being put together, only to find it's just a common-or-garden landscape. Distinctive characters - a wise-cracking phone hacker in London suddenly out of his depth, a Japanese boffin in love with his cyber-companion - all have their parts to play in the war that follows, but once we've passed too many 'hey, I can kill off any character I like!' "shock" moments from our author, we're in generic battle action.

I don't think this was much helped by the style, either. Beyond the original shorts being told in individual styles - interview, testimony, meeting minutes etc, too much is being narrated by the chief grunt, describing one of the AI's archives. This means that too many characters - the girl, and an ex-controller of a robotic peace-keeper in Afghanistan alike, sound too similar.

The episodic structure had me gripped initially, not knowing who I was meeting and in what fashion. But when they'd been combined, it didn't help much. The creativity in robotic weapons borrowing their forms from nature (which our author played with most recently in [[Code Lightfall and the Robot King by Daniel H Wilson|his junior titles]])as Rob evolves comes across patchily, when it could have been a major selling point. There is a lot that is still effective - some body horror on the final front, certainly, and this is definitely not the I, Robot retread I feared. But if Wilson could have sustained his initial set-up throughout, and left the generic completely behind, why - I would either have been lauding this from the rooftops, or suspecting some strong connection between him and the AI genius within these pages.

I must thank the kind Simon and Schuster people for my review copy.

More bad cyber-intelligence threating us all can be seen in [[Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan]].

{{amazontext|amazon=0857204122}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=8105388}}

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@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
 I must thank the kind Simon and Schuster people for my review copy.
-More bad cyber-intelligence threatening us all can be seen in [[Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan]].
+More bad cyber-intelligence threatening us all can be seen in [[Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan]].  You might also need - at some point - an [[How to Use an AI Content Detector|AI Content detector]].
 {{amazontext|amazon=0857204122}}

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{infobox
+{{infobox1
 |title=Robopocalypse
 |author=Daniel H Wilson
@@ Line 14: / Line 14: @@
 |website=http://www.danielhwilson.com/
 |video=uXis7Kie0x0
-|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0857204122</amazonuk>
+|cover=0857204122
-|amazonus=<amazonus>0857204122</amazonus>
+|aznuk=0857204122
 }}

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{infobox
 |title=Robopocalypse
 |author=Daniel H Wilson
 |reviewer=John Lloyd
@@ Line 9: / Line 8: @@
 |buy=Maybe
 |borrow=Yes
 |pages=368
 |publisher=Simon and Schuster
@@ Line 22: / Line 17: @@
 |amazonus=<amazonus>0857204122</amazonus>
 }}
 Rob is out to kill us all, and is going to take some beating.  He already has many advantages, and can adapt easily where he finds a fault in his plans.  He already has most of us dead, or in concentration camps.  Rob is the generic nickname for all robot-kind, all controlled by one supreme Artificial Intelligence, who is set on eradication of our species.
@@ Line 36: / Line 30: @@
 More bad cyber-intelligence threatening us all can be seen in [[Lightborn by Tricia Sullivan]].
-{{amazontext|amazon=0857204122}} {{waterstonestext|waterstones=8105388}}
+{{amazontext|amazon=0857204122}}
 {{commenthead}}