Book Review: Robocopalypse by Daniel H. Wilson

Title: Robopocalypse
Author: Daniel H Wilson
Genre: Sci-Fi Dystopian Fantasy
Publication date: 07 June 2011
Author’s website: http://www.danielhwilson.com/
Source: My own copy

Robopocalypse is set to become a movie directed by Stephen Spielberg – the release date will be in 2013.

Goodreads blurb:

In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans – a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing “smart” toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated U.S. soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire – but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.
When the Robot War ignites -- at a moment known later as Zero Hour -- humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us…and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.

My thoughts:

I loved this book.  It is always fun for me to read a book that is not really in a book form.  Let me explain – Robopocalypse is little glimpses of events in our main characters’ lives.  It is told as little transcripts of events.

Cormac “Big Boy” Wallace finds a little robot at the end of the war that has recorded all the important details of the war through conversations, video surveillance, first hand accounts and documented discussions.  He feels compelled to record all these events for future generations.

Each chapter is a part of the bigger picture of the war where robots rose up against their creators.  Besides our protagonist, Cormac Wallace, a soldier of the war, we also meet an evil teenager, a little girl altered by the robots and an old man that was ostracised by his colleagues.

I recommend this read to all lovers of apocalyptic and dystopian novels as well as all the sci-fi buffs out there.