I don't know if Patterson has a style guide he gives out to the author's who co-write his books, but this was another fine example of the breed. Quick chapters, good pacing, lots of action and good villains. There you go, just reviewed every Patterson book for you. Ah, I kid. This was pretty good.
The world ended when we created robot life, "Hu-bots", and they did what comes naturally to the superior species we are forever building, in that they wiped out most of humanity in a three day war and then settled down to recreate the worst of our own internal political hierachies while attempting to slowly kill off the rest of the human race. Using such delightful tactics as "Killer Films" which essentially are big seizure chambers, designed to wipe out the audience. (I actually could have gone for a bit more of that sinister world-building. It was an impressively creepy little side-view which unfortunately was mostly displaced by the main plot line.)
A main plotline which, in a rather entertaining buddy cop style form, featured an experience, beaten down, scruffy kid from the human ghetto and the newest, shiniest rookie robot straight out from the academy. They fight crime. (By crime, I do of course mean elimination of the evil human scum, the bringing into being of a beautiful world of robot supremacy and a really terrible naming system. They're called things like MosesKhan. World's most conflicted robot.)
This did suffer a little from rattling along a little too quickly in some places, particularly the climax, which wrapped things up neatly with a bow on top with not quite as much going on as I would have liked, but it wasn't a bad ending by any stretch of the imagination.
Recommended.
Tagged: Book Science fiction Robot revolution Novel Print