Edited by Daniel H. Wilson and John Joseph Adams
Simon & Schuster, out now
An intriguing collection of tales of man vs. robots – in many different guises.
Best known as the creator of Robopocalypse, Daniel H. Wilson has teamed up with veteran editor Adams for this very varied anthology, which takes the basic premise of robot uprisings in some quite unusual directions.
Most of the stories are new to the volume – Hugh Howey, Corey Doctorow, Alistair Reynolds and John McCarthy’s are reprints – and they represent all aspects of this core conflict. We have stories from the point of view of the machines, and others from the humans who are either striving to prevent a conflict or are caught up in it. There are some which take an omniscient viewpoint, and others that are far more ambiguous. There are stories in which conflict can be avoided, others where it’s inevitable. Few, if any, are predictable.
Some of them will haunt you long after you read them – Juliana Baggott’s The Golden Hour, Alan Dean Foster’s Seasoning and Nnedi Okorafor’s Spider the Artist did so for me – while others will make you despair of human nature, and hope for the robot rebellion to come quickly! But all of them will make you think about what makes us human, and how technology can alter that state.
Verdict: A well thought through anthology which poses questions rather than simply presenting tales of human vs robot conflict. 8/10
Paul Simpson
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