Sea of Rust

This book was a "Library Roulette" choice for me. I go into the library open up a RNG (random number generator) and use that to direct me to a shelf, sub-shelf, row and book number. I then get that book out and at least give it a try. (I know the use of the RNG is very ironic, and when I saw that was how Brittle chose what door in the city I could not help but smile just a little.)

I knew nothing what so ever about the author C. Robert Cargill, and I purposely did not look him up until after I read the book. I am a fan of Mr. Cargill if this is an example of his work. I very much enjoyed this story! It was a combination apocalyptic, wild-west, Anti-heroine story with a little dash of West World thrown in.

Robots won the war, humanity is dead. That is how the story starts. The background on how the Earth go so very f'ed up is explained in flashback stories. It turns out that if we decide to let AI take care of us and the world, we better make damn sure that we are not depending on Asimov's Laws to protect us! I could not help but get a self-satisfied smile on my face when I realized that almost as soon as AI got done screwing humanity, they started screwing each other; and they were viscous. Almost every robot that was alive/functional (really this book makes these designations rather complicated, there was even a section in the book about assigning a sex to robots. Apparently It all boils down to the sound of their voice whether they are referred to as "he" or "she.") did really horrible things to humans when they killed them. There are some very disturbing memories in this book which involve, kids and flame throwers. The robots killed and they did it in the most inhumane ways (again, this book makes these sort of descriptive words very hard to use.) So I would not really call any of the characters in this book protagonist, more like less offensive antagonists. And in spite of all that. I really enjoyed this book and the story told in it.

Like many, I was very unhappy with the very ending. And when I say that I mean the last few pages. That said this was still a 4 star book and the ending is the only thing keeping it from being a 5 star book.