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ROBOTWORLD by Ray Verola

ROBOTWORLD

No Final Victories

by Ray Verola

Pub Date: Oct. 6th, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-3557-8
Publisher: BookBaby

A man in the late 21st century struggles to stay ahead of a corrupt government and a diabolical corporation in Verola’s SF sequel.

Taylor Morris had good reason to turn against his former employer, RobotWorld. The robot-production company had a plan underway with the government to “phase out humans” and replace them with sentient bots. Following Taylor’s failed attempt to thwart said scheme, officers arrest him along with his family and friends. Luckily, apparent fans of Taylor’s anti-government radio show manage to free him and his wife, Roz. The couple tries to stay hidden, and while Taylor has identified a few higher-ups involved in the RW­–government plot, he doesn’t yet know the identity of the Controller. This individual is the RobotWorld founder and a formidable villain. It seems he’s tracking Taylor, who’ll hopefully lead the Controller to the Aussie, an anti-bot advocate whom RW considers just as dangerous as Taylor. Finding someone whom Taylor can trust isn’t easy, particularly since RW has bots in high-ranking government positions. But he isn’t ready to give up and soon realizes the best fight he can bring against RW and the government is a political one. Verola’s solid sequel unfolds in the Northeast Sector, a small part of the debilitated post–WWIII U.S. It’s primarily a character-driven novel, featuring a motley, intriguing cast. For example, both the Controller and the Aussie are delightfully mysterious, and some bots display human traits like vexation and discontent. As in the first installment, tech is more practical than fascinating; blue detainment halos restrain prisoners, for example. Verola makes the storyline timely with sexbots and Big Brother­–style tech.

A wholly absorbing and grounded dystopian tale.