Robopocalypse discussion

Robopocalypse

This book sounds interesting. However, before I buy it, I just want to know, is this the same as IRobot, it sounds pretty similar from the little I have read about it. No spoilers please :)

I thought this was a pretty decent book. I read it in about 36 hours.

Very thought provoking if nothing else. You might think twice about surrounding yourself with electronic devices after reading it!

Excellent book. I loved the set-up and the way the story carried through. I've never read I, Robot, but Robopocalyse is excellent. Highly recommended.

It was an okay book. I thought it had too many characters and it lacked character developments. If you're expecting it to be like Irobot then you'll be disappointed.

I just finished this book and I liked it. I didn't read I, Robot, but I did see the movie version of it and it is not the same as Robopocalypse. I agree, there was a lack of character development and a lot of the stories had the same "voice", even though they were supposed to be from different people.

Remember when you are critiquing on the lack of charachter development how this book is set up. It's not told in a traditional way, so your characters cannot really be fully developed.

Nope, it's not like I Robot. Closer in story line to 2001 but earth based. Good writing and interesting read.

I thought the first half of the book was pretty solid, but it just got to be tedious by the end. I don't think the writer is particularly talented actually. I saw it compared to World War Z by Max Brooks, which is absurd.

That said, it was a breeze to read, and if you are into apocalyptic books, you may as well check it out, you can probably knock it out in a day or so.

I Garauntee the movie will be better than the book.

Is there a movie in the works for this one?

Apparently speilberg is directing.

I disliked this book immensely. It's incredibly lazy in that it rips off the style of World War Z, almost to the point where he did a replace-all of "robot" for "zombie." The chapters start off with quotes from other works, but about a quarter of the way in he simply loses interest in that.

I agree with Chris that the movie will be better. Can't see how it could be worse, frankly.

My recommendation is to pass on it. Save yourself the hours and read something else. Heck, read WWZ again.

Actually, I am reading WWZ now. There are many differences between these books even though the way in which it is told is vey similar. WWZ really isn't about zombies, it's about humanity. Think about it. Robo is about robots rising up an us coming together and smashing them. Z is about humans defeating each other.

What I DID like better about Robo is the easier reading style. I am not military or politics schooled so a lot of the stuff in WWZ is waaaay over my head.

This book is disappointingly horrible, i was so excited by it. But it just spirals into bad cliche after bad cliche, i couldn't even finish it. I just find it so hard to care about these characters. It all fees so forced. If i read "What blank person did, changed history forever" one more time,I'm going to poke my eyes out

The book started out well, I thought. I liked the premise. However, the quality deteriorated all too quickly. The writing got increasingly lazy and the situations more and more contrived. One could imagine the author envisioning movie rights as he tapped away on his keyboard. I suppose the movie would be better as the book is obviously written to be translated to the big screen, but not by much. This book is fine for a quick skim read, but by no means put this on any TBR list or pile.

This book is not like IRobot (the book), and not even like the movie. It is very reminiscent of The Terminator (movie) though.
I read this book and actually did a review on it a few days ago. You can read it here on Goodreads. I didn't leave any spoilers so you're safe to check it out.
It was an okay book, not terrific, not awful. It'll do.

The doll part reminded me of an episode of "Night Gallery" or maybe "Twilight Zone".

The whole time I was reading it, it felt like a movie script. I think it will be a better movie than it is as a novel. I agree, the story started out stronger then it felt a little predictable/laziness on the author's part towards the end.

An average novel, probably a very exciting movie

I don't understand the hating on this book from the WWZ crowd. It's the same fictional "oral history" style and fully as awesome. Definately a good book.

@Chris said that comparison was "absurd". Which I found puzzling. Post-apocalyptic oral history. Can it really be argued that they are not comparable?

The author of this book definately knows his stuff, and I'm pretty sure the bio said he had a PHD in robotics. Which would make him more of an authority on the subject that Max Brooks, who probably does not have a doctorate in zombies.

I thought it silly. I'm tired of stories about machines getting so sophisticated that they become self-aware and attack us. How often do your machines malfunction? They just stop working. That's their revenge on us. What is really happening is that computers are required to do so much that they will simply overload, freeze up and stop working - the way machines always do. And the idiot geeks who run computers and who aren't too smart to begin with will be incapable of getting them working again. They'll tell us to power down. What will you do when they don't power up again?

I liked this book, but I also went into this book knowing that it was written by a guy with a PHD in Robotics and I understand that most people that are science minded are not english or writing people.

This story lacked character development and real sturdy relationships. There was hardy any mourning over the death of a character, only one.

It as an exciting fast paced read, and I did at times see similaritites between iRobot and this book however where iRobot is attempting to prevent the Robot apocalypse, this book is about what happens after they take over and the events immediately preceding the take over.

Go into it not expecting great writing but a fun story.

James Cameron gets it. His movies are about the failure of technology - our technological over-reach becomes a threat because we lose control of it. Technology fails us and we are endangered when we put too much faith in the technology. From Terminator to Titantic and Avatar, Cameron has warned us that technology is only a means to an end, a machine that we manage to meet a specific goal, and when technology becomes an end unto itself, then we are at risk.

I truly believe we could actually have a Robocalpyse

I really loved this book. I could not put it down. I loved the various points of view, and the original take on some of the robots. I can't wait to see this on the big screen. I'm also looking forward to this author's other work - Amped.

The structure is very close to that of World War Z but where WWZ worked (as mentioned above) is that it managed to bring a human side to the war even through the disjointed manner the story was told.

For me Robopocalypse simple took the premise, applied robots instead of Zombies and gave a timeline of events without giving any humanity, character development (and the structure cannot be blamed for this because it can be done with good writing) or real sense of the scale of the war.

Go watch "Maximum Overdrive" to see how a small scale version of this story. Admittedly a bad movie (and poor short story) but still more fun than Robopocalypse.

Andrew wrote: "Robopocalypse

This book sounds interesting. However, before I buy it, I just want to know, is this the same as IRobot, it sounds pretty similar from the little I have read about it. No spoilers pl..."

It's not the same book. As a matter of fact, the only thing that Asimov's books and this book have in common is that they're about robots. This is an engaging read that makes you believe that the takeover of machines could be possible. Very different indeed to iRobot.

Take World War Z, The Terminator movies, I Robot (Will Smith's movie version, NOT the Asimov novel), put them all in a blender, push puree and you have Robopocalypse. Originality isn't one of it's strong points, but it's decent. If you like Michael Crichton's brand of techno thrillers, then you'll probably like it.