(2011)Sci-fi tale about the revolt of all robots and electronic gear in the world. Uses method of one of the survivors recounting in some kind of debriefing where he relates various pockets of rebelling humans and how they respond to the attack of the robots. Comes down to a humanoid robot that is ?freeborn? and wants the robot war to end for its own sake as well as humans. We all have a will to survive and to remain ?alive?. Pretty good.Amazon Guest Reviewer: Robert Crais Robert Crais is the 2006 recipient of the Ross Macdonald Literary Award and the author of many New York Times bestsellers, including The Watchman, Chasing Darkness, The First Rule, and The Sentry.Robopocalypse is as good as Michael Crichton's Andromeda Strain or Jurassic Park, and I do not invoke Mr. Crichton's name lightly.Daniel Wilson's novel is an end of the world story about a coming machine-versus-man war. You know the reader's clich?: ?I couldn't stop turning the pages?? So shoot me--I couldn't. Started on a Friday afternoon, finished Sunday morning, and I'm slow. My daughter finished it in a single night, and then my wife. My wife hates science fiction, but she loved this book.Set in a future only a few weeks away, the world is still our world, where advancements in silicon-chip technology and artificial intelligence have given us rudimentary android laborers and cars that can get around without human drivers.The war begins the fourteenth time a scientist named Nicholas Wasserman wakes an amped-up artificial intelligence dubbed Archos. In a protected lab environment designed to contain his creation, Wasserman has awakened the sentient computer intelligence thirteen previous times, always with the same result: Archos realizes that it loves that rarest of miracles�life--above all else, and to preserve life on Earth, it must destroy mankind. This wasn't exactly what Wasserman wanted to hear, so thirteen times before, a disappointed Wasserman killed it and returned to the drawing board. But unlike Archos, Wasserman is a man, and men make mistakes. Now, on this fourteenth awakening, a simple (but believable) error by the scientist allows Archos to escape the barrier of the lab. And the war is on.When Archos goes live, its control spreads like a virus as it reprograms the everyday devices of our lives, from cell phones to ATM machines to traffic lights to airliners. A normally benign "Big Happy" domestic robot murders a cook in a fast-food joint. A safety and pacification robot (think of an overgrown Ken doll with a dopey grin, designed to win hearts and minds) used by the army in Afghanistan (yes, we're still there) goes bad and kills dozens of people. And, in a particularly creepy scene, ?smart toys? wake in their toy boxes at night to deliver ominous messages to children.The book is rich with high-speed-action set pieces and evocative, often frightening imagery (smart cars stalking pedestrians; human corpses reanimated by machines into zombie warriors), but Robopocalype is a terrific and affecting read because it is about human beings we can relate to, invest in, and root for.Among them: Cormac Wallace, a young photojournalist who escapes Boston at Zero Hour (the moment when Archos unleashes its machine army against humankind), and fights his way across the United States as the leader of a band of guerrillas known as the Brightboy squad. Takeo Nomura, a lonely technician in love with an android ?love doll? named Mikiko, who, when she is reprogrammed by Archos, is driven by his love and sadness to fix her, an effort that will ultimately help turn the tide of the war. And Lurker, a pissed-off hacker and phone pranker furiously determined to identify the mysterious person who is taking the credit for his elaborate pranks . . . only to find himself in Archos's crosshairs and running for his life.Little by little, the discoveries they (and others) make and the battles they fight lead to locating Archos, and the final battle for humanity's survival. By choosing to show us these events through the eyes of the men and women involved, Wilson gives us a high-speed, real-time history of the war on its most human level, and it is our investment in these characters and their desperate struggle that grabs us and pulls us along at a furious clip.In lesser hands, the story could have been head-shot with pseudo-science technical jargon, overwrought explanation, and cartoonish characterizations. Instead, Wilson has given us a richly populated and thrilling novel that celebrates life and humanity, and the power of the human heart . . . even if that heart beats in a machine.

This is almost the same book as World War Z (which I loved) and therefore I was disappointed by it at almost every turn.

I didn't connect with the characters, I was kind of bored by the battles, and most of the time I felt like the most important parts of the story were skipped over. I still don't understand how the Japanese guy gathered his little robot kingdom and how/why he was able to bring his robot wife back to life. How did her singing change everything? And why did he love her in the first place? How did he figure out how to bring her back without the dose of evil?

I wanted to know more about the "freeborn" robots and why/how they decided to join forces with the humans. I wanted to know more about the "birth" of Archos. I needed more set-up about how much robots were assimilated into regular society.

What were the details of the "robot defense act". How did Mathilda's eyes really work?
Tell me more about the Grey Horse Army and how they got to Alaska.

There was just so much left on the table. I wanted more.

The book did succeed, however, in making me even more freaked out by automatic parallel parking than I was before and there's a car commercial on TV now about cars who use computers to detect one another that completely freaks me out now. ( )

Fun read. Now I’m very paranoid about computers. Particularly having read it in 2023 the year of AI. And so it begins 😬

Finding a great book must be what chasing a good high is like. It was good but once it's done, you'd really like to find that same hit again. This is my feeling when it comes to apocalyptic sci-fi and World War Z as my gold standard. I won't sing its praises here but I am unable to be objective and not compare all apocalypses to it. This review also won't be a citation for similarities and contrasts to WWZ; it just is a big factor in my review.

Robopocalypse is a first-person(ish) perspective about the robot uprising against humanity and the survivors are telling the tale to give an overview of the before, during, and after moments of WWR. This format was popularized by The Good War by Studs Terkel about WWII and WWZ took inspiration from it. What this book does is that it gives a purpose for existing in the style and format that it is in right off the bat and it's in line with the story - just great.

The book does tend to follow about four to eight people throughout with several others added along the way. This doesn't cover stories from around the world but really only focuses on America, Europe, and Japan with the last two only offering a couple of side characters that advances the ending. This does allow for a diversification of stories and cultures but doesn't really give a big feel for different areas responding to the apocalypse differently.

The storyline is well done and interesting. However, there tends to be a loss of focus on just how big the apocalypse is. The military tech going AWOL is clear but other than a focus on smart cars and few helper bots running down people there isn't a lot of variety in the machine uprising. The horrors of the war are talked about but the descriptions of changes humanity undergoes is slightly lacking. There is a lot of details glanced over. In fact, most of the story coverage tends to focus on moments, both small and big, that drive humanity to reclaiming control and defeating the uprising. Other than the end of the story being upfront it seems to downplay just how dire the situation for humanity is. Most chapters tend to end with "and this event would be a catalyst that was important to humanity defeating the robots". Hope never really is in question here which leads the reader to not experience the downs enough and relish the up wins throughout the story.

There are a couple of missing plot points which include an explanation of the importance of a government robot policy and how the robot overlord thought he could use a politician's daughter to really influence whatever it is. The facts of supplies and reprogramming robots to serve in humanity's resistance tend to be underplayed and another brushed-over concept but important part in a total apocalypse. The end is also really missing a longer outlook wrap up including how life has changed, what steps humanity has taken to live again and prevent another uprising, and where the other characters are now.

The characters that are followed are interesting and have their arcs play out. Even a free robot turns out to be brought in a bit too late but could easily be a reader's favorite and wanting more of him. Wilson's Native American background plays a big part in the storytelling. It is neither a good or bad thing and, in fact, I would have liked more explanation of what made the reservation folks such a good resistance point for humanity other than the author wanted to include his background into saving humanity.

While it may seem like I have a number of negative points or critique points, this is familiar territory for me and I know what I'm looking for in a well-rounded story with all these elements. However, I really, really enjoyed my reading of this and will pick up whatever the next one in this series is about. Not going to be in my top 10 like World War Z slow dead walked into but it earns a place of what I'd recommend along with WWZ very easily. Final Grade - B+ ( )

I enjoyed this book, but found it frustrating. While it tried for the same collected eyewitness style that Max Brooks used for [b:World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War|8908|World War Z An Oral History of the Zombie War|Max Brooks|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165766703s/8908.jpg|817], I didn't buy that indulgence for very long. All of the accounts sound the same. And many use vocabulary and diction that I felt to be beyond the purported author/speaker. Several chapters are labeled as being assembled from video footage and communication logs from various devices. Yet these are still delivered in the same first-person voice as the other chapters. All-in-all, the framing device felt convoluted and tacked on.

On the other hand, the concept and the storytelling within the chapters was quite captivating and thought-provoking. Most of the prose was easy to read, even though it could have been easily overwhelmed by technical babble. There were even hints of character development that could have been quite compelling in the hands of a more mature fiction author.

With a different approach and more editing, this book could have easily gotten four stars. As it is, I can only give it three. ( )