{"id":4817,"date":"2019-04-25T14:22:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T18:22:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.e357.net\/beingernest\/?p=4817"},"modified":"2019-04-29T08:03:31","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T12:03:31","slug":"robots-of-gotham-by-todd-mcaulty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/e357.net\/beingernest\/robots-of-gotham-by-todd-mcaulty\/","title":{"rendered":"Robots of Gotham by Todd McAulty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review:\u00a0<\/strong>A Robotic invasion has taken control of Manhattan, the United States is friendless\u00a0and in tatters, Venezuelan\u00a0war machines have taken over Chicago, and the list of countries not governed by AIs gets shorter every day. Hey. We saw all that coming.\u00a0What we didn’t see coming was that when AIs rule the world, they’ll be just as good, bad, and ugly as the humans that went before them.<\/p>\n

Todd McAulty’s debut novel explores a fragmented future where the world is just as divided up as ever, but AIs rule the land in very human ways. Some got themselves elected, some performed coup d\u2019\u00e9tats<\/em>, bloodless or otherwise, and some just bought the place out. AIs in humanoid bodies or full on war droid live side by side with humans as equals, though inevitably, some are more equal than others.<\/p>\n

Barry Simcoe is a Canadian tech CEO who’s been tapped by a tech mogul to help plump up a company that does\u00a0secure comms and find\u00a0a buyer for it. Looking for investors, Barry finds himself in Venezualia occupied Chicago just when things there get interesting.<\/p>\n

A rouge American\u00a0war machine, human-piloted\u00a0because America outlawed AIs, picks a fight in the\u00a0street outside his hotel and Barry narrowly escapes being trampled as the Venezualian soldiers evacuate the hotel where both they and civilians like Barry are camped. Barry winds up being arrested for murder when he tries to save a soldiers life, and in the process winds up making friends of a robot emissary\u00a0from the Kingdom of Manhatten, and the Russian doctor in charge of the occupation’s clinic.<\/p>\n

Reading the novel I managed to misread Barry’s last name as Simone<\/em>, which made me wonder if it\u00a0was a reference to the\u00a02002 movie<\/a>. My mistake, but at the end of that film the title character, herself a computer simulation, decides to go into politics, foreshadowing the\u00a0brave new world of Robots of Gotham<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

From Publisher: A thrilling adventure in a world one step away from total subjugation by machines<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

After long years of war, the United States has sued for peace, yielding to a brutal coalition of nations ruled by fascist machines. <\/em>One-quarter of the country is under foreign occupation. Manhattan has been annexed by a weird robot monarchy, and in Tennessee, a permanent peace is being delicately negotiated between the battered remnants of the U.S. government and an envoy of implacable machines.<\/em>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Canadian businessman Barry Simcoe arrives in occupied Chicago days before his hotel is attacked by a rogue war machine. In the aftermath, he meets a dedicated Russian medic with the occupying army, and 19 Black Winter, a badly damaged robot. Together they stumble on a machine conspiracy to unleash a horrific plague\u2014and learn that the fabled American resistance is not as extinct as everyone believes. Simcoe races against time to prevent the extermination of all life on the continent\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. and uncover a secret that America\u2019s machine conquerors are desperate to keep hidden.<\/em><\/p>\n

Links\/References<\/strong><\/p>\n