Reviews

Sea of Rust by C. Robert Cargill

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autumnxrose's review

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This book started off strong. Great setting, interesting protagonist. But the story overall ended up kind of boring. So high marks for "post-apocalpyptic robot Western", but low marks for being thoroughly unmemorable.

maxed's review

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3.0

It's a competently written book, with a gripping storyline. But I found the robots too human, which lessened my interest. Only a few details set the heroes apart from your generic post-apocalyptic human survivors, and while those details are relevant to the plot, they mostly could be easily replaced (a critical one at the very end, well, it was interesting, but I wish the author made more use of the machine nature). I never got the feeling heroes were truly robots, particularly because of the speech and thought patterns.

letta's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

zzazazz's review

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adventurous dark emotional funny fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

avilareads's review against another edition

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Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Content Warnings

alex_lettersbackcovers's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

marpesea's review

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4.0

This well-crafted robot western stars Brittle, a comfort bot built to take care of people in a world where there are no more humans. Actually, there's not much to do now, aside from avoiding assimilation into a OWI (One World Intelligence) and scavenging parts of other broken or dying bots.

Cargill explores themes of humanity, agency, and the quest for meaning/purpose (especially challenging in a world where everyone is barely surviving and there is no real hope for future improvements).

The narration was excellent, the world was fascinatingly bleak and Brittle is a flawed hero with a tragic backstory (like most anyone who is still alive).

Recommended for fans of The Murderbot Diaries, A Closed and Common Orbit and anyone who ever wished the robots of Ex Machina or Westworld would just get on with it and kill all of the humans.