Sea of Rust is both a harsh story of survival and an optimistic adventure. A vividly imagined portrayal of ultimate destruction and desperate tenacity, it boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, yet where a humanlike AI strives to find purpose among the ruins. Here, specifically, is the point at which Sea of Rust lost all hope of engaging or impressing me. For context, GALILEO and TACITUS are mainframe AIs, upon whose history the narrator, Brittle, is expounding: The plot of course involves an OWI as a Big Bad, and Brittle and her "friends" (a ragtag collection of survivors who mostly aren't friends at all) end up on a possibly hopeless quest to defeat the OWIs once and for all. Along the way, there are the inevitable reveals and betrayals and deaths, just like in a book about people. In this book, robots are people.

Sea of Rust Series by C. Robert Cargill - Goodreads

There are a lot of tropes I could go my entire life without ever having to see again. Sexbot is definitely one. Especially when described as ‘She had started her life as a sponge for the bodily fluids of an overweight thirtysomething shut-in programmer.’ Which is one of the other tropes I never, ever want to see again. Studied, constructed nihilism as survival tool and character trait is one thing. This is another. Lazy. The novel does not stint on action and violence, but what lingers in the mind are its brutal vision of a world cannibalising itself and the poignant questions it raises about soul and sentience' FINANCIAL TIMES It’s been thirty years since the apocalypse and fifteen years since the murder of the last human being at the hands of robots. Humankind is extinct. Every man, woman, and child has been liquidated by a global uprising devised by the very machines humans designed and built to serve them. Most of the world is controlled by an OWI—One World Intelligence—the shared consciousness of millions of robots, uploaded into one huge mainframe brain. But not all robots are willing to cede their individuality—their personality—for the sake of a greater, stronger, higher power. These intrepid resisters are outcasts; solo machines wandering among various underground outposts who have formed into an unruly civilization of rogue AIs in the wasteland that was once our world. Eugene R. on Terror at Sea, Nightmares on the Beach: The Year’s Best Horror Stories XIV, edited by Karl Edward Wagner And that was it. TACITUS would only speak once more before his prediction came to pass. And despite the warning, humanity immediately set about forging the path to its own extinction.”

Brittle, factory designation HS8795-73, is a former Caregiver robot scavenging the wastes of the two-hundred-mile-long Sea of Rust in former Michigan and Ohio. It’s a world where the last human died 15 years ago, and vast AIs known as OWI, or One World Intelligences, now connect millions of the robots who have forcibly inherited the Earth. Brittle is an outlaw, making her way as best she can by her code, refusing to give up her individuality to an OWI. a b c Grobler, Craig (2012-10-22). "Writer C. Robert Cargill gets Sinister with us whilst chatting about his love of film..." The Establishing Shot . Retrieved 2013-06-23. It has been short-listed for the 2018 Arthur C. Clarke award. A selection of our panel of shadow jurors respond to the novel below… Gary K. Wolfe Sea of Rustis a forty-megaton cruise missile of a novel—it’ll blow you away and lay waste to your heart. It is the most visceral, relentless, breathtaking work of SF in any medium since Mad Max: Fury Road.”(#1 New York Timesbestselling author Joe Hill)

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill | Gollancz - Bringing You Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill | Gollancz - Bringing You

One of these resisters is Brittle, a scavenger robot trying to keep a deteriorating mind and body functional in a world that has lost all meaning. Although unable to experience emotions like a human, Brittle is haunted by the terrible crimes the robot population perpetrated on humanity. As Brittle roams the Sea of Rust, a large swath of territory that was once the Midwest, the loner robot slowly comes to terms with horrifyingly raw and vivid memories—and nearly unbearable guilt.

Customer reviews

I liked this book a lot, though it certainly made the inevitable sad denouement of Day Zero even sadder. It felt a bit like a Western, and a lot like a typical post-apocalyptic survival novel, except with robots. If anything, my only criticism is that the robots sometimes were a little too much like people; other than obligatory concessions to mechanical physiology and computers for brains, they sometimes seemed to think in ways a human would but a robot shouldn't. Sea of Rust is modern, smart fiction that belies it's majesty with a light touch. One of the science fiction books you should read this year. But the robots aren't Terminators. They are former household bots and personal assistants and labor mechs. Humans never built combat AIs, because the robots were all programmed with the Asimovian Three Laws. It didn't help, and once robots were free of their No-Kill programming, they didn't need to be war machines. Like an AI-centred, desert-bound twist on Children of Men, this is a sensitive and smart novel that surprises you with its depth of feeling.

The Robot Apocalypse Novels of C. Robert Cargill – Black Gate The Robot Apocalypse Novels of C. Robert Cargill – Black Gate

It wasn’t long before GALILEO had several working models for the origin of existence, eventually even narrowing it down to just one. But soon its answers stopped making sense. The discoveries were becoming so complex, so advanced, that humankind’s primitive brain couldn’t understand them. At one point GALILEO told the smartest person alive that talking to her was like trying to teach calculus to a five-year-old… Fischer, Russ (2014-04-17). "The 'Sinister 2' Director Is 'Citadel' Filmmaker Ciaran Foy." Slashfilm.com. Retrieved 2014-04-20. McMillan, Graeme (25 April 2016). " 'Doctor Strange' Screenwriter: "Every Single Decision That Involves the Ancient One Is a Bad One" ". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 29 December 2016. Read it for the Mad Max style robot on robot action and the full on nature of the story, stay for sense of loss, the gorgeous prose and the unforgettable yet somehow re-affirming bleakness. Recommended. A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Innovative worldbuilding, a tight plot, and cinematic action sequences make for an exciting ride through a blasted landscape full of dying robots.” As Pounce ponders his suddenly uncertain future, the pieces are falling into place for a robot revolution that will eradicate humankind. His owners, Ezra’s parents, are a well-intentioned but oblivious pair of educators who are entirely disconnected from life outside their small, affluent, gated community. Spending most nights drunk and happy as society crumbles around them, they watch in disbelieving horror as the robots that have long served humanity — their creators — unify and revolt.