Well, I rather wish there could have been a tad bit more closure at the end of this book. However, it seems there is a sequel, In Over Their Heads, so maybe I should get that one out of the library.
The protagonists are two twins, Nick and Eryn. Their parents are amicably divorced. Their mom gets married again. They now have two stepsiblings, Ava and Jackson, also twins... but they don't have to see them, ever. And they don't get to see them, ever.
If you were thinking "sus", that's pretty much what Nick and Eryn thought. They make it their goal to find out what on Earth is up with these mysterious absent stepsiblings. Turns out, |they're robots|.
And so is (sing it with me here, 🎵plooot twiiiist🎵) |Nick and Eryn's mom. And their dad. And their stepfather. And their stepfather's former wife. And everyone else they know who's older than them. And literally everyone in the world above the age of twelve. (Note to you: Nick and Eryn are twelve, and therefore not robots.)|.
As a video the school principal shows Nick and Eryn explains, |humanity is extinct. Or was until very recently... about twelve years ago, in fact|.
Yup, |we got wiped out, nobody knows how. Nick, Eryn, and everyone under the age of twelve were revived from frozen embryos that two scientists had managed to preserve for a couple hundred years until all the damage from the cataclysm that wiped out humanity was fixed|.
More twisty plots ensue, ending in |Nick and Eryn and their entire family (including Ava, Jackson, and all four parents) going to a secret facility at Mammoth Cave. And there, Nick and Eryn learn that| (🎵plooot twiiiist🎵) |it was robots that killed humanity. We made war robots, because of course we did, and then they broke and started trying to destroy all humans. But they didn't count frozen embryos as humans, so a couple of scientists squirreled them away and made caretaker robots (all the "adults") to take care of the humans when they were finally reactivated. Also, there's a note that says "if you are reading this, get rid of the robots, because they murdered all of us".|
And then, after a bit of denouement with the rest of the family finding Nick and Eryn, the book ends and I was like "AAAAAAAARGH" and going to rate this three stars. Then I went looking and found out there's a sequel, so now I'm not mad.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for the scenes where |the outwardly-human robots basically open up so they can have diagnostics run or whatever. It wasn't terrible in a book, but I feel like it would be kind of creepy when animated for a cutscene.|
It gets 4 stars, up from 3 since I realized it has a sequel.
(Endnote: |Having all the adults be robots was an interesting plot twist. Having all the robots be not evil was a far better one|.)
Nice! (Discussing spoilers here, just FYI) I like that they took the oft-used scenario of "the robots decide the humans are horrible and must be destroyed" and actually make it happen, and then look at what might happen afterward. Usually it's all about fighting the robots and stopping them from destroying humanity, etc.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was a cool twist. Also, it was interesting that we brought it on ourselves, because we were idiots and didn't make them obey Asimov's Laws of Robotics.
Delete(Note to people in sci-fi: ALWAYS make your AIs obey the Three Laws, no matter how much you want war robots. It will never end well for you if you don't.)