#daniel h. wilson

[rubypomegranates]

“How much change can a person absorb before everything loses meaning Living for its own sake isn't life. People need meaning as much as they need air.”

Daniel H. Wilson “Robopocalypse”

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[the-dust-jacket]

Congratulations to the Alex Awards winners! The Alex Awards honor excellent adult books that appeal to a teen audience.

[ninja-muse]

Review: The Clockwork Dynasty

In brief: An expert on baroque automatons. An automaton who awoke in the Russian court. A war as old as humanity (or the avtomat). Destinies, identity, a new take on robots.

Thoughts: This was huh. Different that I’m used to, and I’d say different than I was expecting except that I don’t know what I was expecting from this book. Apart from some steampunky goodness, which I got. There are definitely elements of thriller in the plot, and some electric action scenes, but the real strength is Wilson’s world-building coupled with the story of a robot trying to find his purpose in the past rather than in the present or future. He works in Clarke’s Laws of Robotics in some interesting ways as well.

But at the same time, because this is science fiction of ideas rather than characters or setting, some of the latter suffer. Setting’s okay, though it’s painted in broad strokes for the most part, but the characters are largely broad strokes as well and that doesn’t always work. Pyotr, the automaton who’s one half of the narration, comes through okay and the male supporting characters have pretty distinct personalities, but the women…. We’re told who June (the other narrator) is more than we’re shown and she doesn’t justify her actions enough to be properly believable. The other women are dancing on the edge of cliché, which was a little disappointing. I couldn’t get much of a read on the villain.

All the same, this was an enjoyable, interesting read and I finished it impressed by Wilson’s take on robotics and by some of the things he wove into the world-building. There were places and parts of history I hadn’t expected to see, but they worked here. It’s not a book to take entirely seriously and not destined to be a classic by any means, but I had fun and it left me thinking, somewhat.

Warnings: Dragon Lady trope, one very violent action scene.

7/10

[perletwo]

And Felipe is a big man. Got that Fu Manchu ’stache and all kinds of ink running up and down his arms. Badass shit, too, like dragons and eagles and this one prehistoric fish all the way down his forearm. A colecanth or something. It’s like this monster dinosaur fish that they thought was extinct. There are fossils of it and everything. Then one day some fisherman gets the surprise of his life when he pulls up a real live devil fish from hell below. Felipe used to say that the fish was proof you can’t keep a motherfucker down forever. Someday you gotta rise up again, you know?

Daniel H. Wilson, Robopocalypse

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[bringbackwendellvaughn]