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vairse's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Basically Mad Max but robots. For once, I actually feel like this story would have played out better on a screen than it did in a book. The action scenes were well done and interesting, but the descriptions started getting repetitive by the end. There are only so many ways a bot can be killed by a plasma rifle before the descriptions start to blend together. There were a few plot points that didn't feel real that I don't think I'd have noticed as much in a movie theater, and Cargill has a habit of ending every single chapter with some sort of pithy one liner. Beyond that, I really enjoyed the exploration of close-to-human-but-not robots dealing with the world humans left them, and most of the characters were interesting and easy to fall for. I especially enjoyed the depictions of the "illness" bots go through when their systems start to wear down.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Child death, Death, Hate crime, Genocide, and Gun violence
Minor: Animal death
sarah984's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.0
This is sort of an action-adventure western set in the aftermath of a robot apocalypse. The robots do still feel pretty human for the most part though - they describe things in relation to how humans would perceive them ("humans would think this smelled bad") and gender each other based on voice for some reason. There are lots of gunfights if you like that sort of thing but other than that I didn't feel like very much actually happened. At one point the entire plot grinds to a halt so the characters can talk about how much they love America, which was weird. The epilogue somehow manages to negate all of the main character’s development and the big twist doesn't really end up mattering all that much.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death, Death, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Gun violence, and Mental illness
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Religious bigotry, Violence, and War
Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, and Terminal illness
norwegianforestreader's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-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? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Violence, War, Terminal illness, Slavery, Sexual content, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Gun violence, Grief, Gore, Genocide, Death, Child death, and Cannibalism
Minor: Animal death
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