"Robopocalypse"

Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. His books include How to Survive a Robot Uprising, Where’s My Jetpack?, How to Build a Robot Army, The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame, Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown, and A Boy and His Bot.

He applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel Robopocalypse, and reported the following:

Excerpt:

I’m as nasty as the day is long and I know every trick
in the book. If I want you, mate, I’ll get you.
--Lurker

Page 69 of Robopocalypse is the first page of a chapter called Phreak.

This chapter is about a teenaged phone hacker who goes by the call sign Lurker. This kid likes to wreak havoc on his enemies by “swatting” them: the process of calling the police from the faked phone number of your enemy, convincing the cops that you’re about to kill somebody, and then laughing as a SWAT team arrives at their house and smashes in the front door.

Yeah, Lurker is a jerk.

This rotten teenager gets his comeuppance when he stumbles across the sentient machine that is quietly plotting a robot uprising – Archos R-14. In a series of events that are representative of much of the first part of the book, the action in this chapter is eerie and mostly psychological. No giant robots, blood, or gore. Instead, Lurker realizes he has stumbled into a hornet’s nest, with implications that could impact all of humankind.

Lurker is the last person you’d choose to save humanity, but how he reacts will shape the fate of billions.

Learn more about the book and author at Daniel Wilson's blog.

My Book, The Movie: A Boy and His Bot.

Writers Read: Daniel H. Wilson.

--Marshal Zeringue