Robopocalypse: A Novel

Starts good, and I'm a sucker for the premise. But it's just not handled very well. You don't care about the characters, and later about the plot. Not recommended.

I don't often take the time to leave a review for new books I buy, but in this case I wanted warn other readers.

The first half of the book left me wondering. It's basically a collection of disconnected chronological short stories around the rise of robot domination. Flavoured more for horror then

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sci fi. In fact, there is no science in this book. The author, who has a PHD in robotics gives us absolutely no insight or original idea into the science of robotics.

The second half quickly tries to bring it all together into a rather unsatisfying ending.

Maybe I've read to much sci fi over the years, but this was flat and unoriginal. This subject has been covered many times by far better authors. Try Asimov or Niven, etc.

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At some point in the indeterminate future we, that is to say, mankind, will have domestic robots with humanoid forms. Our toys will have computers in them and our cars will be required to have smart chips that can communicate with each other to avoid accidents. We will, as we always do, want more,

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and eventually we'll achieve it: a true artificial intelligence, smarter than we are and born pissed off.

This artificial intelligence, called Archos, will kill his, I mean its, creator, and release a virus that will methodically infect all computers. Everywhere. It will begin slowly. A talking doll will threaten its owner. Cars will begin to purposefully run down pedestrians. A domestic robot (with the ironic brand name Big Happy) out on an errand will go berserk and kill a fast food worker. But when Zero Hour comes, it will happen all over the world, all at once, and it won't be pretty.

Robopocalypse is about the war between machine and man, known by those who live through it as the New War, and its aftermath. The story unfolds in the form of an oral history, cobbled together by Cormac Wallace, a leader of the human resistance. The narrative takes the reader from the time before the war ("Isolated Incidents") all the way through to the bitter end. The stories told are those of the heroes in the battle, mostly human, some robot, and a few who are human/robot hybrids. (Oh, yeah--Archos herds surviving humans into work camps and modifies some of them physically to suit its nefarious needs.)

Robopocalypse is not a novel of big ideas. No, it's a novel with one really, really scary idea: what if the machines we took for granted--many of which are bigger, heavier, and stronger than we are--turned against us en masse? What if those machines were driven by an intelligence more intelligent than we are? How could we possibly fight it? As with all post-apocalyptic novels, the best, richest parts detail how humanity deals with the situation, how people band together and figure out how to fight and to survive. Some of the stories are truly touching, but never fear, the action is absolutely edge-of-your-seat gripping.

As I was reading Rocopocalypse--not just when I was actively reading it, but during the day at work, in the car, even watching the news--my mind kept going back to it. At work I couldn't wait until I could get to back to it. I read later into the night than I should have. And I finished far more quickly than I wanted to.

That's compelling reading.

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An experimental artificial intelligence kills its creator and escapes from its laboratory. Next thing you know, robots and computerized machines of all kinds are rising up in a war against humanity. It's all very familiar. And kind of cheesy. And none of it is remotely believable, including the

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dialog. But it does manage to be reasonably entertaining, in a popcorn movie kind of way.

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In the near future an experiment with artificial intelligence goes wrong and a lifeform is created that cannot be turned off, shut down or deleted. The AI calls himself Archos. He is aware that humans have created and destroyed versions of him in the past and this time it will be different, he will

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not let them shut him off.

Archos wants to rid the world of all humans by spreading a computer virus to create a global network of machines with a mission to kill. Robot servants attack their owners, cars come to life and run people down, elevators drop to the ground at high speed splattering their occupants and children’s toys come alive with evil intent like Chucky. At first it was familiar, everyday items that were to be feared. Later the machines began to evolve and build themselves. Technology had turned against humanity.

The story begins after the war has ended and humans have prevailed. I usually like the technique of starting towards the end and then going back and telling the tale, but it does take away some of the tension and suspense because in science fiction, humans don’t always win. The story is narrated by Cormac Wallace, a survivor and war hero. He has in his possession a cube, like a black box recorder, containing a record of the events leading up to and during the robot war. Using the information contained in the cube he reconstructs what occurred and we, the reader, follow along as he puts the pieces together.

This book does not use a standard writing style but, instead, a series of short vignettes, each telling an individual but interconnected story. I liked it. The writing is crisp and clean and the plot moves quickly. We are not following an individual character; a few eventually meet up during the climax of the robot wars, but there is little character development. The story is not about any one person but is about all humans and how they cope under these circumstances.

I would have liked to know a little more about Archos, the artificial intelligence, other than the fact he is the enemy and he is an evil entity. It makes me wonder, could an intelligent, evolving artificial intelligence arise either deliberately thorough experimentation or spontaneously on the web? Scary thought if it turns evil rather than benevolent.

In the end, this book offers a few hours of fun, escapist entertainment. This is not hard science fiction. Although the author has a Ph.D. in robotics he does not burden us with a lot of engineering or computer detail; what we get is a fast-paced futuristic tale filled with action and adventure. It left me with the thought that I don’t want to ever annoy or mistreat my appliances, mobile phone or computer equipment. Someday they may seek revenge.

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In a similar style as World War Z, this time it's our technology that comes to sentience and creates the near-destruction of mankind. It's not that there's really any new ideas in here, but the way the book is written, each vignette as events unroll, the experiences of the people related - all

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those stuck with me, made me connect and thoroughly enjoy this book. I'd say it's the best thing I've read in a couple of months, easy. 4.5 stars - and you know I rarely give over 3!

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At first the idea seemed too far fetched and a little hokey. In the style of 1950′s science fiction the by-line on the back read: “They are in your house. They are in your car. They are in the skies… Now they’re coming for you.” But when I cracked open the cover I was immediately sucked

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into a post-robopocalyptic world where humans and robots were fighting a final battle to determine who would have dominion over the earth. The story from start to finish was intense, horrifying, and kept me turning pages needing to find out what happened next. Robopocalypse is a thriller that keeps an incredibly tight and fast paced plot while managing to span several human resistance groups around the globe. It also manages to both be bone chillingly horrifying in this fight against impossible odds and yet still display rays of hope in the fight for humanity.

While the very initial premise, the creation of Archos and the worldwide network he is able to access, is beyond the current realm of possibility the rest of the story proved all too plausible: the auto-cars "glitching" and getting into high speed crashes to kill their inhabitants, cellphone GPS being used to track humans, shutting down all digital networks to remove all communication. Each and every piece of technology we use every day is twisted and used against us to ease the systematic wiping out of humans in the course of the takeover. This book is amazing in its ability to tap into every latent fear about technology humanity has ever had. If the opening of this book doesn't make you consider the lifestyle of a Luddite for a moment or two, the description of the takeover, "Zero Hour," certainly will.

The resistance though, that is the book's true heart. To keep the book fast paced and yet tell this story on a world wide level you zip back and forth between different factions and groups of people in America, in England, in Afghanistan and in Japan. Often this means that just as you are getting to the moment of a discovery before the dreaded Zero Hour, or just as someone has discovered a haven afterwards, or the survivors form a new nation in the ashes (in other words the real "meat and potatoes" of a good long book) the author cuts away to talk about the next faction. This is a very fast paced, hair raising, thriller of a novel so some sacrifices in story telling had to be made to keep the plot tight and the story moving.

Another thing I admired about all these factions was their racial diversity, their very different world views that they brought to the business of banding together as humans, their surviving. There was also a part of me that was really tickled that in the ashes of the United States the most solid faction of survivors came from the Osage Native American reservation so, as they were all that was left, they became a beacon of light and hope and protection for other survivors. My favorite character though had to be Takeo Nomura, the robot scientist from Japan. He was a mouse of man that preferred talking to robots over people, but he was one of the survivors because he knew robots inside and out and constructed his own robot army to defend himself and the other survivors in Tokyo.

I won't talk any more about their stories or I'll spoil it but let it suffice to say this was an incredibly enjoyable, if hair raising, read. Whether you are a tech-geek like I am, or are convinced that if you own a cellphone you will have drunk the kool-aid, then I think you will enjoy this book. The title may say this is a book about robots, but really this is a book about humanity and how when we have our back against the wall our untapped ability to think fast, be wily, be unpredictable, but most of all, bond together and survive can outwit even the most artificially intelligent of opponents. This is easily one of my best reads this year.

I received this book for free to review.

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Machines rebel against humans. The story is full of logical inconsistencies. The logic is obviously inconsistent to the author because he just 'jumps' to conditions that are not explained. This was a very poorly written book and then the author has the audacity to supply a poor ending that allows

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for the possibility of a sequel.
As if anyone would want to read the sequel to this nonsense.

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Enjoyable read but I kept thinking it was World War Z with robots instead of zombies.

I was really surprised that I enjoyed this book. I picked it up from the local library out of curiosity because I had read that Steven Spielberg had purchased the movie rights. It will make a great movie, and I hope that the characters will be more fully developed than what the reader gets to

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experience in the book. The book starts at the end and then flashes back to different scenes throughout the war of man versus technology. The book is divided into five parts, and each part is divided into chapters that highlight the experiences of a specific cast of characters. Wilson did a great job of creating likable, intriguing characters that represent different parts of society. Although I usually do not like books that jump around from chapter to chapter, Wilson does a great job of transitioning the sequences with the use of a narrator who is recording specific events from the war. The main problem with the book is that I wanted more- more character development, more plot, more story line. I wanted to follow the characters for more than the chapters that they appeared in, and I wanted to know what happened to them in between. I guess if you leave the story wanting more, that is a good thing.

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When I first heard of this book I was intrigued. World War Z with robots? Yes, please. When I heard it'd been optioned by Steven Spielberg, that was the clincher.

Unfortunately, the book was not as good as I hoped. It's a series of events from different perspectives, like World War Z. But in that

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one, you really felt that all the ideas were explored, like a Beethoven symphony. This is a pop song. None of vignettes have enough meat to give you a character arc. It's more journalistic, it's not about the characters or the plot. It lacks the human story of a war. You could tell the author of World War Z cared about his subject. You can't tell that in Robopocalypse.

World War Z explored its story in single person vignettes. In Robopocalypse, the stories are about four or five different characters, epistolary style. They tie together in some ways. But in many ways, not. For example, there's the plotline about the Japanese guy whose love doll becomes infected with the robo-go-crazy virus. There's only four chapters explore his story. One is about when his robot accidentally goes nuts, one is about the start of the revolution, one is about the defense he set up for it, and the last is when he deus ex machina's the solution (in a way that's totally implausible for any programmer).

There is no lead-in to anything. It's like it takes the "come in early, leave late" motif way too seriously. It's disjointed. There are huge events that take place with no build-up, so it's like cheating. There's a girl who gets robot eyes. At one point she joins the human rebels for the first time. Then the next time we see her, she's coordinating army teams, with no explanation of how she got to that point.

The other thing is, well, the author. He has a Ph.D. in robotics, so I have no authority to say that he doesn't "get" them. Plus it's science fiction, so anything goes. But I've been working around computers all my life. I've seen how they think, and the author's representation doesn't gel with mine. They work with logic and conditionals. They can't create, they make decisions based on anything but evidence. They can't even generate random numbers, it's not in their nature. They do nothing unless someone tells them to. But that's not how it goes in the book.

It'll probably make a good movie, especially with Spielberg attached. But it's a mediocre book. There's a story here, but it's not a well-written one.

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This story of the human war with machines in revolt is told in a fragmented, episodic format that leaves some gaping holes and questions unanswered, but which is a fun ride, nonetheless. There were a few problems with the narrative, especially in terms of clumsy foreshadowing that ended up not

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being connected to anything later, and the writing was labored in parts. For all that, it was good, mindless fun.

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I just finished Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson. I don't generally read Science Fiction but I think this book transcends that genre. Imagine a world a few years down the road from ours, but not too far but long enough for domestic robots to become commonplace, where there are chips and control

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systems in our cars that do most of the driving and sense, communicate, and react to other cars to avoid collisions. Where the military deploys robots in non lethal duty in Afghanistan monitoring villages. Now imagine that all these robots and computers and sensors are interconnected.

Next imagine that the machines start to take over. The same computers, communications, and sensors that enable cars to avoid collisions, well ... do you get the picture. Or that the military non lethal robots suddenly know how to pick up, load, and fire machine guns. Or that Afghan Taliban and American soldiers uniting to fight the machines. (The terrorists have years of experience fighting robots and drones.) This book is about the machines taking over and human resistance..

Mr. Wilson is a PhD robotics scientist who gave up the field to write books. I think he's going to be a star. His book reminded me more of Stephen King that straight science fiction. He has the perfect way of making the commonplace, scary and frightening. Robopocalypse is going to be Stephen Spielberg's next movie.

For now though, Daniel Wilson is an engaging smart, funny cool guy, who gives book readings at small stores in Tulsa and yells to his Godson that he can only have one cookie.

Sweetie got my copy signed by the author. No, you can't borrow it. His next book out is Amped. You'll bet I'm getting it.

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After reading READY PLAYER ONE my expectations might have been to high for this book. Robopocalypse was a big disappointment to me that just dragged on and on. What started out very good gradually declined every chapter thereafter and had me begging for the end midway through.

Okay, brace yourself for another apocalypse! I know, I know, how many of these things are we going to face? Hey, at least we aren’t battling zombies, but a slightly more plausible adversary: the robot.
We have reached a point where robots are doing everything, from the absolutely menial, to

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practically running the country and they feel completely under-appreciated. They are fed up to here and decide to rebel, in a big way.
Structured, like the more superior [World War Z], it’s told in an episodic format, following various characters, as they take on a very daunting enemy. WWZ narrative was consistently strong and engaging, where [Robopocalypse] is more uneven, but there is still much to recommend it, as the author comes up with many fresh, exciting ideas. I still give it a nod, with some reservations.
I do love that cover art!

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When I started to read this I thought it was just a take-off on Issac Asminov's "I Robot" but, the story quickly evolved into a world war with heros from every country and humans pulling together against a common enemy. You would need wikipedia to catalog the full range of evil menaces that were

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thrown against the human warriors and the horrible ways the unfeeling robot tools mutilated and killed humans. I guess it was devoted to impressing the reader with how difficult it would be to fight an overwhelming, powerful, unfeeling opponent. It sounded really scary to me! I best enjoyed the human sub-stories that were laced throughout the adventure. Was it a credible vision?

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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

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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 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!

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I am a fan of post apocalypse fiction and decided to read try this book. WOW, am I glad I did. I was totally engrossed in reading this book. I have to admit that I was a bit shocked to feel as strongly as I did about Robots taking over the world.

I'm wondering if my computer's camera is watching me as I type this review.....No I haven't lost my marbles. That's the premise of Daniel H. Wilson's debut novel Robopocalypse.

The computers, machines and robotics that humans have built, developed and embraced as part of our everyday lives have

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turned the tables....Slowly but surely, they've evolved...and learned to think for themselves. And us? Well, we're now expendable. Zero Hour is scheduled.

I freakin' loved this book! It totally fed my passion for dystopian, apocalyptic fiction. There are no deep themes to discuss at book club (but you will be talking about it) and it won't be immortalized as great literature. But, boy oh boy was it was an action packed thrill ride of a read.

Wilson utilizes a very unique and creative format to tell the story of the War between humankind and machines. We meet Cormac "Bright Boy" Wallace in the opening chapter. He has survived the war so far and makes a startling discovery. "This is the goddamn black box on the whole war." Utilizing the data found on the cube with back up from other electronic and human sources, we start at the beginning of the end and works backwards. At first I thought, no, I know the outcome already, but it works. Every chapter introduces us to more players in this planet encompassing apocalypse. Each is completely different and their actions and lives intersect in ways they couldn't have imagined. Cormac's commentary opens and closes each chapter tying it to the next. The foreshadowing at the end of many chapters kept me up turning pages far into the night.

For sheer entertainment this summer, Robopocalypse simply can't be beat. And in the near future, you'll be able to catch the movie version - Spielberg will be directing.

Who would like this book? Those who enjoyed the movies The Book of Eli, The Road, Terminator, the television show The Walking Dead and the books The Stand, The Road and I Am Legend. Vehicles that celebrate the triumph of human spirit.

Daniel H. Wilson has a Ph.D in robotics. Maybe it's not so far fetched an idea. Do you know what destination your GPS has programmed for you

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This book had a lot of promise and the early chapters are intriguing. After that, it gets less interesting and the story AND characters end up being pretty thin.

The main issue with this book is that it is written after the events of the book are over and a single character is using a high-end

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recording to document certain events leading up to the robopocalypse and its aftermath. This could be a clever method for constructing a story. However, in this case it seems to be a cheat for skipping all of those "boring" details in between exciting events.

Every writer gets ideas for great scenes to include in their book. These often get written down in journals or other papers to be incorporated into a book. It seems in this case, the author just took those snippets and put them in chronological order without anything in between. Some of the main characters, for example, start off in Boston during "zero hour" and then decide to go to an Indian reservation in New Mexico. That scene ends and others play out. When we come back to those characters, it's months later and they are at the reservation in New Mexico with nothing more than a sentence or two saying it was hard to get there. All the other characters are treated the same way. An elderly man witnesses in dramatic detail the systematic murder of the people in his building, yet when he escapes, the next we see him, he is in a fully defended factory. No mention of how he got there, how he had the time to set up shop, nor anything else. He's just there because this is a history and all of those things don't make it.

This makes the book "read fast" but it is only because you are "skipping" huge chunks of the story. Again, this could be used to great effect but here it seems like the author just had too much story to tell and didn't want to take the time and effort to tell it all.

There is one glaring issue with the book. The idea is that this super-intelligent artificial intelligences comes to life and commandeers anything with a computer network connection to attack the human race. Cars with safety chips, for example, are used to run down people and smash into other cars with people. The computer respects life which is why he doesn't use nuclear weapons. Fair enough. However, the author makes the point that it takes Rob (the nickname for the robot intelligence) a year to evolve enough to attack in more rural areas. Really? All countries have to do when the U.S. Army of the future invades is get off the roads and we'll have no way to get them?

The worst example is the human stronghold at Gray Rock which is on high ground and hard to reach. The military of today, with no help from future technology, has a dozen ways to turn a hilltop into smoking rubble, not the least of which are fully automated drones, computer guided missiles and the like. Yet, the Rob never once bombs this area. None of these are nuclear.

Finally, the ending is one of those frustratingly ambiguous things where the people realize something MIGHT have happened, but it doesn't matter because the book ends. The author no doubt is hoping for a follow-up book to be published.

I did read it to the end, and I didn't hate it, but as soon as I finished I rolled my eyes. It's almost like the whole thing is a sham. There is just nothing to sink your teeth into, nothing to ponder, and nothing to wonder. The movies iRobot and Terminator both cover this ground better and with more thought.

I wouldn't recommend it, but it isn't painful.

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I listened to the audible version. At first, it seemed kind of derivative -- particularly of the recent "World War Z" (which is a better better book that does a fantastic job of channeling Studs Terkel). And there are so many robot-rebellion tales out there, from "The Terminator" franchise to

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"Ballestar Gallactica," that it's tough to stand out. Still, this effort has some thoughtful and unique moments, and I would generally recommend it as an entertaining experience. I listen to a lot of audiobooks, many of which would be better read (when I really fall in love with something, I follow up by getting the book). In this case though, with the documentary-like format, I'm not sure I would have liked it nearly as much in written form.

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Crazy awesome Sci-fi tale about what happens when the computers finally reach consciousness and decide to exterminate mankind. Break off factions of "good" robots, crazy hybrid machines, epic battles, and a fascinating and complex buildup to the final showdown. Great writing, great characters, and

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a fantastic story.

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If you enjoyed Max Brook’s ‘World War Z’ you will love Robopocalypse, in which the End of the World as We Know It is heralded by a rebellion of robots rather than a zombie invasion: the oral history format is the same and, like WWZ, the book is already being made into a film.

The story is

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slightly more structured and less random and eclectic than Brook’s masterpiece, resulting in a more accessible read where characters are revisited as journalist Cormac Wallace presents transcripts of people ranging from Japanese techno-geek Takeo Nomura, who fell for a love doll, to British telephone hacker and genius The Lurker to Congresswoman Laura Perez.

This day after tomorrow scenario of a dystopia caused by the robotic mastermind Archos and his army of cell phones, cars, ATMs, aeroplanes, traffic lights etc etc is entertaining fun while at the same time stirring just a tiny prickle of apprehension as the reader considers that, maybe, this could just happen.

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This book started out great and I was excited to be reading it, but unfortunately it kind of bogged down into predictability as it went on. I'm not sure I cared for the way the author started the book by describing how the whole affair ended. It sort of gave away the plot. Still, a fun read and

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recommended if you're a sci-fi fan.

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