Robota by Orson Scott Card and Doug Chiang

First published in 2003; republished by Dover Books on November 16, 2016

A fair number of science fiction fans wet themselves when they hear the name Orson Scott Card. Yes, he’s done some good work, but it isn’t all special. Case in point: Robota.

Robota is the name given to the Earth after it has been conquered by robots. When the story begins, Caps wakes up inside a machine with no memory of how he got there or what his purpose might be. He finds he is in a world where robots smoke pipes and hunt monsters. Fortunately, he’s befriended by a talking monkey who can explain the world’s dangers.

Caps received a message inside the machine that said something about Font Prime, but he doesn't understand the message. He befriends a monster, Juomes, who blames Font Prime for the persecution of talking animals. Juomes (who looks suspiciously like a Wookie) teaches Caps to fight and they all go wandering about looking for a way to defeat the robots and kill Font Prime so that humans can rise again. Or at least sentient animals can rise, given the scarcity of humans.

The monkey and the monster are sentient because of something called cubing jewels. That leads to some simplistic (masquerading as profound) observations about the difference between sentient creatures, which appreciate beauty, and robots, which appreciate oil. There are good robots and (mostly) bad robots, which leads to some simplistic (masquerading as profound) observations about the difference between good and bad. What it boils down to is, bad robots want to kill humans and good robots don’t.

It’s easy to see prejudice against robots as a metaphor for prejudice against Muslims or gays or immigrants, in the sense that all robots need to be judged individually, including the one who betrays his fellow robots to join forces with Caps and Juomes and the monkey and a woman who dwells in a mushroom city. Like the other messages in this story, it's too obvious to be effective.

Card’s world building seems a bit random (how about a mushroom city and … and a stone city and … and … hmm, I got it … a city that floats in the air!) but the world building shows more imagination than the plot, which is both derivative and predictable.

After the story dogs along for a while, relying largely on unsuccessful attempts at monkey humor, Card reveals a premise that is moderately clever in one sense and predictable in another. Then the story dogs along some more. The good bits (and there are some) are cancelled out by the lame bits, leaving me indifferent to the whole. It certainly didn't make me wet myself.

This is an illustrated story. Doug Chiang's poster-style art is nice but it isn’t spectacular, and other than making it apparent that Juomes looks a lot like a Wookie, it doesn’t add much of value.

NOT RECOMMENDED