The next step in evolution may not be a human one. That's the logical premise of Daniel H. Wilson's original Robopocalypse, the popular book that began the story of a world overrun with sapient artificial intelligences bent on the destruction of humankind. In this sequel, the survivors of the machine intelligence war find that the triumph for which they sacrificed everything was only the beginning, as the rogue intelligence known as Archos is alive and well--and building a machine army that will rival the original one in both deadly capacity and brutal variety.
The perspective shifts among the survivors from one chapter to the next, with occasional commentary from the inhuman Archos, which lends a sense of urgency to each terrifying interaction between the humans and this new, more powerful threat. In addition, artificial animals begin appearing in natural habitats, possibly experiments created by some unknown, deep-thinking mind somewhere in the sea.
Wilson pulls no punches in this thrilling tale of survival, with characters doomed from the outset to suffer. Children's eyes are torn out to make way for machine-assisted vision modules. After the death of the original AI in the first novel, all-but-brain-dead soldiers are suddenly freed from the enemy's control but still attached to machines onto which they'd been grafted. Wandering soldiers wonder if it's right to bring new children into this devastated world. The war may be over, but the fight for the planet has just begun. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor