Bane of Kings has written a short review of Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson, published by Simon and Schauster.

“An awesome, page-turning, edge-of-your-seat apocalyptic novel. Fantastic stuff, one of the best novels that I’ve read this year.”~The Founding Fields

If you’ve heard about Daniel H. Wilson at all, it’s probably through his novel How to survive a Robot Uprising. Well, having never that read that novel; Robopocalypse has given me enough cause to read his previous work.

Wilson picks up a tried-and-tested idea of robots rising up against their masters, and puts a twist on it. At first, it looks like your average Robot vs. Human novel, but then – there’s so much more in here. Right, now that I’ve got that out of the way, here’s a rough outline.

Events that seem random are happening all over the world in a near future. A prank played on a domestic robot goes horribly wrong when it malfunctions, and a ‘smart doll’ begins to talk with its owner, a daughter of a US congresswoman. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, an urban pacification unit goes AWOL and disarms insurgents before turning the gun on civilians and US Military alike. And, a teenager in London unwillingly stumbles across a terrifying digital creation.

Although these isolated events pass unnoticed expect for the few that witness them, the robots, lead by their mechanical leader known as Archos soon turn against their human masters, meaning only one thing. The robopocalypse has arrived, at the time known as Zero Hour.

And with it, the Robot War heralds the potential destruction of human life on Earth.

All that said, Robopocalypse is a fast read, one that you will go through pretty quickly, especially seeing as if you like this sort of thing, then you’ll really enjoy it, like I did. Indeed, I’m going to boldly repeat my statement made in the opening quote, and say that this is possibly one of the better novels that I’ve read this year. If not the top spot, then defiantly in the top ten so far.

Alright, I mentioned earlier that this novel would be different from most others of its ilk, and here’s why. Instead of throwing you right in at the deep end, focusing on the events happening after the uprising has took place, you are introduced to what human life was like before the robopocalypse, and the events that took place to make humanity be placed on the edge of extinction.

As expected, there’s some great military action as several soldiers from around the world take up arms to fight against the rob, (the slang term for robots used in this novel), and this follows the lives of several people from around the globe as they attempt to survive.

For those who that that the robots would stay the same throughout the whole novel, you’re wrong – because they don’t. They evolve, into machines adapted to different situations as they attempt to seize humanity’s position as the dominate force on Earth.

Sometimes though, this novel felt as though it was going too fast for me, as we were leaping from one action scene to the next.

Although there are a few flaws in Robopocalypse, it was still a very good read nonetheless, and I can see why this, although only recently been released, has had an expected film release date in 2013.

I’ve already decided that I want to see that movie, and I wish that Spielberg would hurry up and produce it.

Rating: 4.5/5