Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson (2011)
A struggle.
Book cover blurb
People should know that, at first, the enemy looked like everyday stuff: cars, buildings, phones. Then later, when they started designing themselves, Rob looked familiar but distorted, like people and animals from some other universe, built by some other god.
In the near future, a massively powerful artificial intelligence called Archos is created and cannot be contained. In those early months, only a handful of technological glitches are noticed by humans, as Archos starts to take over our cars, aircraft guidance systems, military robots and computer networks - enslaving the entire global system that runs our lives.
Then comes Zero Hour. The robot war suddenly ignites and as all the dazzling technology that runs our world turns against us, the human race is both decimated and for the first time in history, united.
In the devastation that follows, humankind must destroy its own civilisation to survive.
We will not be exterminated.
My Review
My wife often says "Life is too short to waste on finishing books you're not enjoying." I really should listen to her.
At the time of writing this, I was still very new to Goodreads, and Robopocalypse was the first book review I'd written since joining. I so wanted it to be positive and full of enthusiasm...alas, it wasn't to be.
I found the writing format too disjointed to allow me any emotional attachment to anything. It's written in bite-sized segments from different character points of view in varying locations, spread over almost three years. We don't really get any background to these characters or any real insight into who they were before the Robopocalypse. I felt there wasn't enough personal history or character traits to allow me to relate to these people, feel for or even dislike them.
Story and situation-wise, I didn't feel there was anything I hadn’t already seen umpteen times before. There were no plot twists or surprises. No "Wow" or "Oh my god!" moments, just too much predictability.
It actually became quite a chore to pick up the book and continue reading, I just didn't want to do it. However, once I did start reading again things didn't seem quite so bad, the writing itself was ok but there was no real enjoyment involved in reading, no real flow to carry me along with the story. I was just mindlessly plodding along to get where I was going. It was like watching the news and expecting a beginning, middle and end to marry everything together, it's just not going to happen.
In about the last quarter of the book things start to gather enough regularity, character-wise, that I began to get a better feel for the ride and a sensation of speed finally coming into play. Unfortunately by this time, I was already bored with the view and just wanted to fall asleep in the back seat.
My copy of this novel
Simon & Schuster paperback.
Published in 2012
347 pages
ISBN 9780857204141