Robopocalypse (Robopocalypse, #1)

As a Techno thriller, this works very well indeed. It has overtones of The Terminator, coupled with a [authorr:Daniel Suarez]-like AI movement.

"you will know that humanity carried the flame of knowledge into the terrible blackness of the unknown, to the very brink of annihilation. And we carried it back."

The Humanity comes out well here, though, the people are very well painted indeed. Each chapter follows a different person or group, and the differing viewpoints drive home the impact of the Robopocalypse all the harder.

"There will be one casualty. He will soon be followed by the rest of humanity.""
Archos, the deadly AI, is quite spooky, and that just at the beginning.
It does seem that, if an AI were to appear today, a slip-up in a lab could well be the catalyst to unforetold consequences.

"I can only give you words. Nothing fancy. But this will have to do."

Well written and cracking on at a thundering pace, this is certainly worth a read. Only its brevity turns it more into a modern zombie story than a true techy mech epic.

So Robopocalypse isn't great, or even good, but what's even more damaging is that it is a dull, dull book. Direct comparisons are made in the publicity to Michael Crichton and Robert A. Heinlein, but Wilson has none of the satiric or stylistic flair of the latter, and very little of the former's ability to synthesize believable scientific research into a propulsive plot. Crichton was no maestro, but at his best (The Andromeda Strain, Sphere) he was able to throw out vast quantities of scientific exposition that never bogged down the storyline but instead actually enhanced it. Crichton didn't write great art, but he wrote great pulp (until he became bogged down in his own portentousness). Wilson's research isn't half as well presented, and never remotely believable, which lends the book an air of fantasy rather than the true-to-life science it appears to aim for.

Read the rest of the review here.