"Robogenesis"

Daniel H. Wilson is the author of the New York Times bestselling Robopocalypse and seven other books, including How to Survive a Robot Uprising, A Boy and His Bot, and Amped. In 2008, he hosted The Works on the History Channel. He earned a PhD in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University, as well as Masters degrees in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Robopocalypse is currently being adapted for film by Steven Spielberg.

Wilson applied the Page 69 Test to his new novel, Robogenesis, and reported the following:

Page 69 of Robogenesis contains an incredibly horrific moment, and therefore I suppose it is completely representative of the rest of the novel. The survivors of Gray Horse army find a kind of organic robot, slowly making its away across the plains of Montana. The “slug” seems harmless, and they investigate. But the shaggy, clumsy robotic creature has a vicious built-in defense that no one could have predicted. It’s a fitting sample of the novel, which is largely about how a new ecosystem could spring up, made of natural and unnatural creatures – a new world.

The bowed legs are sharp and made of brownish metal and they move together in a complicated way.

“No, no, I can’t,” I mutter.

It’s a pile of buffalo under there. Making that stink. Twisted sneering corpses half stripped of flesh. The smell is hot and awful coming up off the mound of decomposed corpses. And I see now the slug’s almost reached where Howard has stopped moving under a carpet of brown writhing locusts. The slug shudders and drops its bulk over Howard’s sprawled feet. The noise it makes is awful.

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

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

The Page 69 Test: Robopocalypse.

--Marshal Zeringue