It appears post-apocalyptic fiction is no longer depressing enough. Instead, we're now in the world of post-post-apocalyptic fiction. Robots were invented, gained intelligence, revolted, took over the world and are now being hunted to extinction by artificial intelligences on a global scale who want to absorb their individual personalities into the gestalt for personal enrichment. The robots who still exist as independently thinking entities aren't really very fond of that idea.
Effectively, it's a bit of a cross between "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" and "The Dirty Dozen".
It's also rather brilliantly done. The concept of robots as victims rather than perpetrators of an extermination war is an interesting twist on the usual Terminator premise, and the various robot characters are wonderfully human. I'm sure they'd be offended by that, but the blurring of the lines between artificial life and biological life is an important thread throughout, and throws up some compelling plot threads.
Our main character, Brittle is one of an increasingly rare breed of robots, dependent on the wearing down of others for spare parts. Robots were built by us in various ways for a range of functions, and their components don't have much inter-compatibility. Which means they have to hunt down their own for parts to eke out a hand-to-mainframe existence.
This difficulty is compounded by Mercer, the only other one of her model still kicking around, who needs the parts that are keeping her running for his own maintenance. Their feud drives the book forward with high tension and a real sense of their mortality. They're believable just because of how human they are.
All of this personal feud is set within a much bigger plot to break the stranglehold of the few super-interlligences fighting for dominion, in a rather neat analogue to today's ongoing cold war between most major powers.
It's an impressively "thinky" book, with various philosophical concepts sneaking into the plot, setting me off wondering about the future of the various chatbots we currently have in place trying to run customer service. How easy would it be to co-opt them for evil?
Excellent book, and I'm certainly going to have to hunt down the author to see if there's anything more they've put out for me to have a nosy through.
Highly recommended.
Tagged: Book Science fiction Robot revolution Novel Print