Sea of Rust

C. Robert Cargill

Completed 3/2/2019, Reviewed 3/3/2019

4 stars

This is the third robot book I’ve read this year.  It’s a book club selection.  It’s sort of an apocalyptic western where all the humans have died or been killed by robots and now the robots rule the earth.  It’s a tremendous novel with spare prose and just the right amount of action.  I was riveted by the first chapter and the author maintained a decent pace through the rest of the book. 

Brittle is a Caregiver robot.  She roams the Midwest, the Sea of Rust, looking for other robots who are near death, culling their parts to then sell to other robots.  She’s sort of a gunslinging organ harvester trying to survive in a harsh world.  One day, Brittle is attacked by another robot looking for parts.  She escapes but is badly damaged.  On her way to find parts for herself, she meets several other robots who ask her to guide them to an undisclosed location.  However, on the way, they are attacked by facets, robots who have given up their individuality to a massive hive-mind consciousness.  Afterwards, they are on the run, trying to remain freebots in world that is quickly becoming a dystopian nightmare. 

Interspersed through the main plot, Brittle tells the story of how the robots exterminated humanity and came to rule the earth.  She also talks about her role as a Caregiver before the robopocalypse, and the state of the world at that time.  At first, I felt it was a little like I, Robot, with the running thread of the history of the world during the robot era, but the flashbacks are much more cohesive than the short stories of Asimov’s collection. 

I thought the conflict of the freebots versus the hive-mind consciousness was pretty cool.  The basic idea been done before, but not necessarily with robots to my knowledge.  It also reminded me of stories about revolutions where the new guard is just as dysfunctional as the old guard.  A few powerful beings with some power try to grab more power and end up creating the same world they overthrew, just with different characters.

I really enjoyed the first chapter which describes Brittle coming across a robot that has gone four-oh-four, a failure code which most surfers of the internet have probably come across.  It rings a little like a standalone short story, but it sets an awesome mood for the rest of the book. 

The characters were really well done.  The book is narrated in first person by Brittle, so we get to know her the best.  The remaining characters never feel wooden.  When we come across good guys and bad guys, we find that the terms good and bad are relative.  The morality is not black and white.  This adds depth to all the characters, keeping them from being cardboard charicatures.

I give the book four stars out of five.  I found it a refreshing take on an old trope.  The prose was spare, conveying the bleakness of the world.  It had just the right amount of action for me.  The flashback historical exposition did a lot to break it up so it did not seem excessive.  I highly recommend this book.