| Title | : | Awakening (This Mortal Coil: After the Machines #1) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | - |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Kindle Edition |
| Number of Pages | : | 74 |
| Publication | : | First published October 31, 2014 |
Awakening (This Mortal Coil: After the Machines #1) Reviews
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I read a bit of this author's fantasy (which was bad) and decided to peek at his science fiction. I read the free preview available on Amazon and good god it was repetitive. Heck, there were whole paragraphs where the same sentence/idea was repeated/rephrased several times. You could have edited the whole thing down (at least from what I read in the preview) from two chapters to two paragraphs and not really missed anything.
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Never, ever, ever. Fooled once, won't happen again.
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More of a chapter or section than a book. The whole book would have fit in a prologue and first chapter. While it was somewhat interesting, I found myself wanting the author to get on with it. The writing style annoyed me as did the characters. Just about the time I thought things were going to get started, the 'book' ended.
If I'd paid for this, I'd want my money back. I'd say don't waste your time but it probably won't take you any time to read it. -
There are a lot of experiments going on in book publishing at the moment, and this one intrigues me. It is a simple marketing technique based on the technology available to us these days. Authors are creating expansive (and expensive) sagas but breaking them up into sixty- or seventy-page sections and selling them for less than a dollar each. I suppose there’s nothing new about this. Dickens serialized Great Expectations in 9 episodes, which would come out to about 60 pages per issue. That worked in his market, where pamphlets and magazines were popular. In any case, the book I am reviewing this week is about 75 pages long.
The concept for this story is rather neat: instead of the usual “After-The-Final-Battle” scenario, this one takes place in a world “Post-Apocalypse-That-Didn’t-Happen,” in which mankind died, as the poet said, “not with a bang, but a whimper,” when machines simply grew too complex to need humans. So they shunted them aside like old technology and went their merry way, leaving those humans that survived to…well…survive.
This story is allegorical. “Mercedes” lives in a mindless society that follows empty traditions enforced by a leader who leads them nowhere. Rather as we would expect machine society to evolve. Cedes is one of the few humans who becomes aware of her self, and follows her departed leader, Luke, in trying to awaken others. Sort of like so many “robot becomes aware” SF stories. I particularly like the transport truck with a human wired into it as a biological intelligence.
In this book Robert Stanek reveals a wonderful style, quite different from his other writing: spare, pared down, economical. These are the thoughts of someone who speaks little, who does not have the words to express what is in her mind. The story is emotionally low-key, because Cedes’ emotions develop and grow as her awakening progresses. What keeps us interested is the parceling out of information by the author (and Cedes), each page giving us just enough information to want to learn more about this character and about her world. Her earnest desire to succeed at her altruistic task endears her to us, and the almost-stream-of-consciousness narrative style keeps us firmly inside her mind.
I enjoyed this book, although I must mention the somewhat confusing triple title/subtitle combination of “After the Machines: Episode One: Awakening (This Mortal Coil). Since I’m not sure which is which, I assume that part of the experiment has been lost on me.
Definitely worth the less-than-a-dollar price. Recommended for all Post-Apocalypse and general SciFi/Fantasy fans. -
The series really could be put into one book. It was a good start to the story though.
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REVIEW AFTER THE MACHINES EPISODE 1
Nearly a century ago poet T. S. Eliot prophesied the world ending "not with a bang but a whimper." Robert Stanek' s serial AFTER THE MACHINES stands on that, and on Stephen Hawking' s perceptive view of Artificial Intelligence (AI): "Success in creating SO would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last."
AFTER THE MACHINES postulates a world in which humanity, figuratively and literally, rolled over and died, once the machines became rulers. Very few people are left, and education and literacy are mostly a thing of the past. The episode is related in a rather choppy sort of first-person narrative which reminds of machine code, as if the few remaining humans are becoming less human and more machine-like. -
Whoa... very stream-of-conscious writing; it kept me wondering and reading because I was curious what was going on. I felt however that I was looking at a new world, with lots of details and things I wanted to explore, through a tiny peep-hole. I couldn't get a good view of anything, it was almost claustrophobic.
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Really liked this Matrix-y post-apoc story BUT look at the page count! These are short stories posing as novellas, a serial that should be one book (and it still wouldn't be very long).
Will still get all of them because they are well-written and interesting, accomplishing the mean feat of inventing something fresh (to me) in the end-of-the-world genre... -
Awakening, such a perfect title for this story!
Mercedes and the people of Central have lost their way. Humans are a shell of what we once were. But things are about to change after Luke disappears. Mystery and drama with lots to think about.
