"Steal Fire from the Gods" by Clint Hall

The Prometheus reference in the title doesn't make sense until the very end.

This is set in a world after robots acquired sentience, then acquired element magic, then acquired world domination. Over the course of the story they also acquire |blood magic| (despite not themselves having |blood|; they get it from |kidnapped babies|), then finally acquire |Satan|. I thought the robots were alien robots at first; they are not.

The plot follows a guy named Gunnar Graves, who's initially rather angstily self-centered and doesn't grow out of it for much of the book, not helped by everyone telling him he's some sort of chosen one. That usually tanks my enjoyment of a book (the "overpowered chosen one who angsts because he doesn't want to be the chosen one" trope is one of my least favorites, because it almost always feels like an emo teenager's self-insert), but in this case, it's redeemed. Mostly by the very end.

Speaking of which, ENDING SPOILERS. |The last two chapters elevate this from a kind of mediocre book to a pretty good one. The main character, Gunnar Graves, who's somehow acquired the title "The Immortal Gunnar Graves" over the course of the book... kinda dies. And by "kinda" I mean "permanently". This marks the first time I've seen any book do that; there's a couple famous series I've read that kill off their main characters, but both of them get brought back.|

|In my eyes, this makes up for the self-centeredness of the main character, as he goes from "it's all about me and my personal angst war against the robots" to sacrificing himself so everyone else can have a shot at the robots. The telepath kid NPC, who the main character had spent half the book being mad at for no good reason, proves to be quite good at his job. I like the telepath kid.|

The magic system in here isn't very explained. Possibly because the main character hates his magic lessons. 

This is, uh, sort of Christian magical realism? It's implied the magic is from God and the robots are just misusing it (this is possibly |Satan's fault|), and the book is written by a Christian. Eh, it can have the tag, it's better than A Song Called Home was.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: A strong T for violence and harm to children.

4 stars. 

(Endnote: I have no idea what the promotional quote means by "compressed-epic".)