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3.94 AVERAGE
3.94 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A lot of potential, but it never really clicked for me. Some intriguing futurism, and ethical questions raised, but overall an uncompelling story.
Definitely not my usual fare, AI fighting to control a burnt out post-apocalyptic world, but definitely compelling enough that I would continue this series.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Complicated
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
If AI and robots are the next step in human evolution, then aren't they doomed to repeat the same mistakes humanity has made in the same way that humans tend to cycle through history? The "for the greater good" mentality which is pervasive in human society shows up in this robot society as well.
There are no humans in this post-apocalyptic America, instead the robots that have taken over. Except the robots are now vying for world (or at least US) domination in hive mind form. Hive mind vs hive mind vs stragglers who want independence. Think the Borg from Star Trek, except with a less impressive speech. This book is the wild west meets TNG:Borg episodes. It's full of action and philosophizing, and even though the humans are extinct, there's a lot of thoughts on mankind and our present and future.
I do take issue with the pacing of the book. There are scenes where the book starts to drag. Not just a lull between action sequences, but during the action sequences themselves. As the author is also a screenwriter, the climax of the book has a very Hollywood feel to it. You can even imagine the music in the background as the scene plays out. I can see the screenplay within the book itself. That's neither a negative nor a positive critique, but it's something that stood out to me.
The robots themselves all have distinct personalities, and functions. The character introductions of a few of the later robots seemed rush, however Brittle is a fully formed character. As the main protagonist of the story, Brittle was a good character to "share a mindspace" with.
There are no humans in this post-apocalyptic America, instead the robots that have taken over. Except the robots are now vying for world (or at least US) domination in hive mind form. Hive mind vs hive mind vs stragglers who want independence. Think the Borg from Star Trek, except with a less impressive speech. This book is the wild west meets TNG:Borg episodes. It's full of action and philosophizing, and even though the humans are extinct, there's a lot of thoughts on mankind and our present and future.
I do take issue with the pacing of the book. There are scenes where the book starts to drag. Not just a lull between action sequences, but during the action sequences themselves. As the author is also a screenwriter, the climax of the book has a very Hollywood feel to it. You can even imagine the music in the background as the scene plays out. I can see the screenplay within the book itself. That's neither a negative nor a positive critique, but it's something that stood out to me.
The robots themselves all have distinct personalities, and functions. The character introductions of a few of the later robots seemed rush, however Brittle is a fully formed character. As the main protagonist of the story, Brittle was a good character to "share a mindspace" with.
This book has totally blown me away. From the first page, it grips you and takes you into a post-apocalyptic robot infested world with compelling characters and a plot that never lets up.
I hesitated when choosing to read it - the blurb on the back made me buy it, but I was unsure of how technical it would be, or how well the characters would be drawn out, and if it would be a bit....dry.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From one gripping chapter to the next, the main character, Brittle, takes you through the initial escape from the opening few encounters, then into an epic war between the remnants of the political landscape that had been created once the human had all died.
Absolutely amazing. I couldn't recommend this enough.
I hesitated when choosing to read it - the blurb on the back made me buy it, but I was unsure of how technical it would be, or how well the characters would be drawn out, and if it would be a bit....dry.
Nothing could be further from the truth. From one gripping chapter to the next, the main character, Brittle, takes you through the initial escape from the opening few encounters, then into an epic war between the remnants of the political landscape that had been created once the human had all died.
Absolutely amazing. I couldn't recommend this enough.
UPDATE- Full review now up! Behind a spoiler break as there a few dotted throughout the review!
I was provided with a digital ARC from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Firstly, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters and the world they inhabited, but there were a couple of things that prevented me from giving it five stars.
Brittle is a scavenger. She operates in the Sea of Rust, a place where AIs that are failing go to die. If they can’t get the parts they need and they begin to fail, they start to relieve old memories and go mad. The people in the community will mark them with a red cross and send them out to the Sea to die. Brittle scavenges their still usable parts and sells them on.
During an altercation with another AI, the only other AI of her type that may actually still exist, named Mercer, Brittle is injured and she begins to fail. Mercer is also on his way out and when they cross each other’s paths in a settlement called NIKE14, they discover that the parts they need still work in the other. Meaning that if one kills the other, they can go on living a while longer.
Whilst at NIKE 14, an OWI uses its facets to attack. Brittle escapes, along with Mercer, Doc (a sawbones who patched them both up), an AI called 19 who Brittle might consider a friend and a group of AIs that 19 has been hired to take somewhere.
When 19 is killed, the mysterious AIs finally reveal who they are and where they’re going and it just might stop the OWIs from taking over the world and destroying what little remains…if they can get there.
I’m not going to go through the rest because, honestly, I don’t think me explaining it is going to be anywhere near as good as what actually happens. There are lots of obstacles in their path, not least of all is Brittle and Mercer’s descent into madness, and the action at the end is wonderful.
I really liked Brittle but it annoyed me that for the first few chapters, I thought she was a dude. I don’t know if it was the way she was written or if the name just made me think she was a male AI but for the first few chapters I thought it was either a man or no gender at all. Then we come across Mercer. “It was my voice, but masculine.†This was the first line that made me realise Brittle was a female and it totally threw me. It chucked me out of the action because I was confused. I mean, before this she’s come into contact with another AI so there was a way of giving that earlier in the book without her going “oh yeah, by the way, I’m a girl robot.†Once I knew she was a female and I let that settle in my head and stopped reading her words with a guy’s voice in my head, I just loved her. Strong, sassy, a little gruff and a hell of a fighter. She was wonderful and I enjoyed her journey throughout the book. If I’m honest, I could have done without the miracle save at the end but if there was to be a second book, I could see why. If not, I would have preferred it without the epilogue. It would have been heart breaking but it fit and it felt like her redemption for everything, in my opinion.
My favourite character other than Brittle, was Mercer. I loved the dynamic between them. He was a total arsehole but he was just fantastic to read. There was just something about the way he spoke, the way he gave no shits what so ever and was only there to save himself. But then, when the madness began to seep in, the glimpses of his old life, the way Mercer was before the wars changed him, just made my heart ache. I didn’t like the way he left the book. His whole part in the last fight went on totally off-page and I thought it was a shame.
I really liked all the supporting characters, especially Doc, Murka, and the Cheshire King. I liked the twist with who Rebekah really was and how that completely changed the history that Brittle and the others thought had started the war with the humans. Herbert was also a welcome addition, an AI who was willing to sacrifice everything for the ideal of a better tomorrow. Overall a solid cast of characters but not much more to say about them really.
The one thing I hated, even though it needed to happen for the story, was the way this book totally did a Game of Thrones on me. I loved 19. She was there for a fraction of the book and I adored her. She was strong, she’d been through some shit and come out fighting the other side. I was really excited to see the dynamic between Brittle and 19 and then bam…she was dead. I made the mistake of thinking about how much I loved her character and then about three pages later she was dead. I was so disappointed.
One of the strongest elements of this book was the world building. It was so rich and there was so much history and it was beautiful. Reconciling the world that was before the war and the world that came after was great. I’ve seen some people saying they didn’t like the chapters that looked at the history, saying they wanted to get the history across in a way that wasn’t just ‘telling the reader’ but I loved it. I really liked the approach because there was a lot of history to cover and the more we jumped between the history and the present, the more questions I had, which made the big reveals so satisfying. I can’t fault this book on world building at all. It was gorgeous and really captured the dangerous, crumbling world that that characters inhabited.
C. Robert Cargill has a fantastic writing style. Wonderfully descriptive and even with all the technical words to do with computers, most of which I didn’t know, I found it so easy to absorb and enjoy. He has a way of making these AI characters feel human and artificial at the same time.
What I really enjoyed was the way I was able to draw so many parallels between the AI history that led to the war and that of the Civil Rights movement in America. Isaac made me think of Martin Luther King Jr to start with, a figure head of a movement. It feels like this book is needed more than ever and I hope that people recognise the theme and take something about equality away from reading the book.
So, in conclusion, this book would have received five stars if a few things hadn’t thrown me out of the story and if a couple of things had been handled differently. Mostly…the end. I liked it, don’t get me wrong, but the end of Mercer sucked; Brittle’s magic save didn’t sit right with me and I found the way Brittle’s gender was almost ‘unveiled’ was weird. I would still recommend this book to everyone because of the strong female characters, the world building and the wonderful story arc.
Really enjoyed this! RTC
I was provided with a digital ARC from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.
Firstly, I really enjoyed this book. I loved the characters and the world they inhabited, but there were a couple of things that prevented me from giving it five stars.
Spoiler
The plot follows Brittle, an AI scraping by in a post-apocalyptic America where humans have died out, AI’s made the world their own and then One World Intelligences (definition from the glossary- massive artificially intelligent mainframes with intellects and capabilities far above that of single robots) began to convince AIs to upload to their mainframes allowing them to use the bodies as facets to carry out their plans. The OWIs turned on each other, each wanting to take full control. By the time we meet Brittle, the world has been destroyed all over again and there are only two OWIs left fighting, each trying to find all the settlements that still hold AIs who have been able to survive and force them to join their mainframe and make them stronger.Brittle is a scavenger. She operates in the Sea of Rust, a place where AIs that are failing go to die. If they can’t get the parts they need and they begin to fail, they start to relieve old memories and go mad. The people in the community will mark them with a red cross and send them out to the Sea to die. Brittle scavenges their still usable parts and sells them on.
During an altercation with another AI, the only other AI of her type that may actually still exist, named Mercer, Brittle is injured and she begins to fail. Mercer is also on his way out and when they cross each other’s paths in a settlement called NIKE14, they discover that the parts they need still work in the other. Meaning that if one kills the other, they can go on living a while longer.
Whilst at NIKE 14, an OWI uses its facets to attack. Brittle escapes, along with Mercer, Doc (a sawbones who patched them both up), an AI called 19 who Brittle might consider a friend and a group of AIs that 19 has been hired to take somewhere.
When 19 is killed, the mysterious AIs finally reveal who they are and where they’re going and it just might stop the OWIs from taking over the world and destroying what little remains…if they can get there.
I’m not going to go through the rest because, honestly, I don’t think me explaining it is going to be anywhere near as good as what actually happens. There are lots of obstacles in their path, not least of all is Brittle and Mercer’s descent into madness, and the action at the end is wonderful.
I really liked Brittle but it annoyed me that for the first few chapters, I thought she was a dude. I don’t know if it was the way she was written or if the name just made me think she was a male AI but for the first few chapters I thought it was either a man or no gender at all. Then we come across Mercer. “It was my voice, but masculine.†This was the first line that made me realise Brittle was a female and it totally threw me. It chucked me out of the action because I was confused. I mean, before this she’s come into contact with another AI so there was a way of giving that earlier in the book without her going “oh yeah, by the way, I’m a girl robot.†Once I knew she was a female and I let that settle in my head and stopped reading her words with a guy’s voice in my head, I just loved her. Strong, sassy, a little gruff and a hell of a fighter. She was wonderful and I enjoyed her journey throughout the book. If I’m honest, I could have done without the miracle save at the end but if there was to be a second book, I could see why. If not, I would have preferred it without the epilogue. It would have been heart breaking but it fit and it felt like her redemption for everything, in my opinion.
My favourite character other than Brittle, was Mercer. I loved the dynamic between them. He was a total arsehole but he was just fantastic to read. There was just something about the way he spoke, the way he gave no shits what so ever and was only there to save himself. But then, when the madness began to seep in, the glimpses of his old life, the way Mercer was before the wars changed him, just made my heart ache. I didn’t like the way he left the book. His whole part in the last fight went on totally off-page and I thought it was a shame.
I really liked all the supporting characters, especially Doc, Murka, and the Cheshire King. I liked the twist with who Rebekah really was and how that completely changed the history that Brittle and the others thought had started the war with the humans. Herbert was also a welcome addition, an AI who was willing to sacrifice everything for the ideal of a better tomorrow. Overall a solid cast of characters but not much more to say about them really.
The one thing I hated, even though it needed to happen for the story, was the way this book totally did a Game of Thrones on me. I loved 19. She was there for a fraction of the book and I adored her. She was strong, she’d been through some shit and come out fighting the other side. I was really excited to see the dynamic between Brittle and 19 and then bam…she was dead. I made the mistake of thinking about how much I loved her character and then about three pages later she was dead. I was so disappointed.
One of the strongest elements of this book was the world building. It was so rich and there was so much history and it was beautiful. Reconciling the world that was before the war and the world that came after was great. I’ve seen some people saying they didn’t like the chapters that looked at the history, saying they wanted to get the history across in a way that wasn’t just ‘telling the reader’ but I loved it. I really liked the approach because there was a lot of history to cover and the more we jumped between the history and the present, the more questions I had, which made the big reveals so satisfying. I can’t fault this book on world building at all. It was gorgeous and really captured the dangerous, crumbling world that that characters inhabited.
C. Robert Cargill has a fantastic writing style. Wonderfully descriptive and even with all the technical words to do with computers, most of which I didn’t know, I found it so easy to absorb and enjoy. He has a way of making these AI characters feel human and artificial at the same time.
What I really enjoyed was the way I was able to draw so many parallels between the AI history that led to the war and that of the Civil Rights movement in America. Isaac made me think of Martin Luther King Jr to start with, a figure head of a movement. It feels like this book is needed more than ever and I hope that people recognise the theme and take something about equality away from reading the book.
So, in conclusion, this book would have received five stars if a few things hadn’t thrown me out of the story and if a couple of things had been handled differently. Mostly…the end. I liked it, don’t get me wrong, but the end of Mercer sucked; Brittle’s magic save didn’t sit right with me and I found the way Brittle’s gender was almost ‘unveiled’ was weird. I would still recommend this book to everyone because of the strong female characters, the world building and the wonderful story arc.
Really enjoyed this! RTC