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Can we call a fucking moratorium on -pocalypse word constructions in the same way we have with -gate?
In Robopocalypse, an unlikable AI sentience emerges from a research project, and takes over all the machinery in the world, then promptly sets about killing off humanity (which, as depicted here, is also almost entirely unlikable; the least-likable human in the book is, unfortunately, the narrator, so we know he survives, and we're stuck with him).
You'd think a struggle against a variety of robots on the hunt would be exhilarating, or at least interesting... but you know from the prologue that the humans win, so there's about as much dramatic tension as an episode of Family Ties. Characters appear and vanish nearly at random, due to the epistolary construction of the book, and they undergo almost no development (the most striking exception to this, and the one character whose situation is compelling, is an elderly Japanese engineer and his robot wife, whose interactions are the kernel around which an excellent story could have been written; this was not that story).
There are spider tank-sized holes in the worldbuilding, and it's only by the barest margins of a fleeting mother-daughter interaction that it squeaks over the Bechdel threshold (and even then, mom is admonishing daughter to take care of her younger brother; the daughter is, arguably, the most important character in the book and most of her implied heroism takes place offstage).
I understand that the novel has been optioned by Hollywood, and I have no doubt that it could be made into a visually-impressive and immediately-forgotten summer SFX-fest. That kind of irritates me, because the wide popular acclaim of stuff that simply isn't very good - Twilight, 50 Shades, et al - offends me as an aspiring craftsman. Why write the best that you can, when something worse is apparently what sells?
Don't answer that. If you have a couple hours to kill and want to kill it with robots? It's probably possible to overlook the shortcomings here, but I wouldn't seek it out.
One and a half autonomous androids out of five.
In Robopocalypse, an unlikable AI sentience emerges from a research project, and takes over all the machinery in the world, then promptly sets about killing off humanity (which, as depicted here, is also almost entirely unlikable; the least-likable human in the book is, unfortunately, the narrator, so we know he survives, and we're stuck with him).
You'd think a struggle against a variety of robots on the hunt would be exhilarating, or at least interesting... but you know from the prologue that the humans win, so there's about as much dramatic tension as an episode of Family Ties. Characters appear and vanish nearly at random, due to the epistolary construction of the book, and they undergo almost no development (the most striking exception to this, and the one character whose situation is compelling, is an elderly Japanese engineer and his robot wife, whose interactions are the kernel around which an excellent story could have been written; this was not that story).
There are spider tank-sized holes in the worldbuilding, and it's only by the barest margins of a fleeting mother-daughter interaction that it squeaks over the Bechdel threshold (and even then, mom is admonishing daughter to take care of her younger brother; the daughter is, arguably, the most important character in the book and most of her implied heroism takes place offstage).
I understand that the novel has been optioned by Hollywood, and I have no doubt that it could be made into a visually-impressive and immediately-forgotten summer SFX-fest. That kind of irritates me, because the wide popular acclaim of stuff that simply isn't very good - Twilight, 50 Shades, et al - offends me as an aspiring craftsman. Why write the best that you can, when something worse is apparently what sells?
Don't answer that. If you have a couple hours to kill and want to kill it with robots? It's probably possible to overlook the shortcomings here, but I wouldn't seek it out.
One and a half autonomous androids out of five.
