When I saw this new read while browsing at Chapters, it looked like an intriguing read.  So I went home and searched for reviews on it.  In general, Amazon’s reviews are usually quite good as people add a ton of verbiage.  However, Amazon’s review of this book was quite literally (pun intended) all over the place - it had almost an equal rating of 1 through 5 stars. 

It was more unsettling to read the comments.  Many of the people who gave it 5 stars wrote very little other than “great topics” and “I loved it”, whereas those who gave it 3-4 stars said it was a good topic, but “boring in parts” and “already done in Terminator.”  Those who gave it 1-2 stars often said it was “poorly written” and a “failure of science fiction.”

Confused?  I certain was. So I decided to read it, and I’m glad I did.  I consider myself well read when it comes to science fiction (my favorite genre), and this was definitely a 5-star book.  It was extremely well written, engaging, and chalked full of original ideas and lines that I’m sure will make it into the movie someday ;-)

I don’t want to give away the plot lines or too many of the features in this post in case you haven’t read it and want to - however, it is a book that starts by discussing the outcome of a robot uprising, and then leads you through the events that took place up until the outcome through a series of disjointed experiences.  It is not simply a re-hash of other science fiction books on similar topics, and it is written very well to its unique narrative design.

When I finished the book, I looked over the Amazon reviews again - while I can now understand where some reviews were coming from (science fiction snobs often don’t like non-standard narrative structures), most other reviews still leave me puzzled.

It just shows you that you can’t judge a book by its Amazon review.....