ERASING EARTH
by Stephan Bellamy
In Bellamy’s debut SF series opener, a diverse race of robots and androids tending the long-evacuated Earth of the far future fight for their existence.
Earth in 5120 is mostly lifeless desert. Spacegoing mankind relocated to the distant paradise world of Esther, leaving tiers of robots, androids, and drones as caretakers of the Terran homeworld. These machine beings—or at least their ruling robotic class, known as “Elites,” who can take a physical form very close to human—were granted emotions and humanlike minds. While living on Esther, the brilliant Dr. Ann has overseen the operation and sent periodic upgrades and queries to Earth. But communications have now virtually ceased. The robots were supposed to refresh the desiccated planet but are now continually partying. Another hurdle is a computer virus called Glitch, which can corrupt even the Elites. Glitch threatens all of Earth until the appearance of Adam, a genetically modified teen with “bionic” implants, who seems to bridge the gap between Homo sapiens and robot—or something. He may be able to cure Glitch and restore its victims. But appearances deceive, and Glitch might be more complex than originally thought. More questions than answers hover through the sometimes-perplexing adventure. This far-future world has, to put it mildly, very fluid rules and undefined superpowers to match the shape-shifting characters and environments (some of which are more software than solid matter). It may help to think of Bellamy’s bots less as the nuts-and-bolts logical beings of Isaac Asimov’s work (or even Disney’s WALL-E, a more accessible vision of an empty world tended by automatons) and more like fanciful Japanese-anime SF mechs, passionate and impetuous AIs able to morph and mutate into whatever virtual-reality direction the wavy-gravy plotline dictates. Several robots, plus Adam, take turns in first-person narration, but it will remain for sequels to clarify, decrypt, and recode.
An inventive, semi-surreal robot-driven SF narrative whose operating system runs on fuzzy logic.