Wednesday, January 20, 2016

BOOK REVIEW - After the Machines (ep 1: The Awakening)


Author: Robert Stanek - http://www.robertstanek.com
Format: Kindle ebook. Free on amazon.
Did it feel like a full novel: no, it's a serial with a cut off at the first bit of rising action
Cliffhanger: yes
Genre: sci fi, post apocalyptic?
Dates Read: Dec 31 2015 - Jan 3 2016
Official Blurb: Our World Is No Longer Ours... It's Theirs.

The human survivors lead a hardscrabble life, scavenging what they can from the dead city, waiting and watching. Cedes isn't like Matthew and his regulars. She dreams. She talks. She questions. She wonders why Luke disappeared, where Luke disappeared to. She wants to know what we are to the machines. This is her story. This is our story. This is the story of us, the humans who survive.

In the ruins of our world, a new order arose, an order controlled by the very machines humankind created. The end for us came not from a massive global war but from something unthinkable, incomprehensible. The machines simply replaced us and we let them, and so, in the end, humanity went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. No shots fired. No bombs dropped. No cities destroyed. We ended and the machines began--or at least that is what the few human survivors of the machine apocalypse believe.

One Sentence: Great idea, but lacking in execution

Full Review: It sounds like a great synopsis, but the book itself kinda lets you down. The style of Cedes' thinking is very awkward. She repeats herself a lot. There's not a lot of explanation, which sort of makes sense being that the main character isn't sure about anything, but there should still be some context clues for the reader. I assume they're hiding at Grand Central Station, but their book is something I can't quite guess at. Even the landscape is more than a bit fuzzy. If they're near a formerly populated area, what's left around them? It just gives you a heck of a lot of questions but no answers.

Even the fact that Cedes is special doesn't make sense. I assume it'll be explained later on, but right now she's just too much a 'special snowflake' that it's annoying. A shame this one turned out as such, as I think it could have been a lot better because the plot seems fascinating otherwise.

Rating: 2 stars

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