Tuesday, August 2, 2016

ARC REVIEW Machinations by Hayley Stone

"By the time Skynet became self-aware it had spread into millions of computer servers across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was software in cyberspace. There was no system core. It could not be shut down. The attack began at 6:18 p.m., just as he said it would. Judgment Day. The day the human race was nearly destroyed by weapons they'd built to protect themselves. I should have realized our destiny was never to stop Judgment Day. It was merely to survive it together. The Terminator knew. He tried to tell us but I didn't want to hear it. Maybe the future has been written. I don't know. All I know is what the Terminator taught me: Never stop fighting. And I never will. The battle has just begun."

Okay, That's from Terminator, but this book is very similar. It's kind of like Salvation where it takes place all in the future. The AI's have become self aware and in that they have decided that mankind is the enemy. It started off with the self flying planes crashing and killing everyone on board, self driving cars, and public transit doing the same. The machines were attacking and whatever happened you never wanted to be taken alive. In some parts it reminded me of The Matrix Revolutions in the day to day life underground. And in both cases of Terminator and Matrix there is a single person everyone looks to for salvation and hope. I found this book to be very entertaining. Hayley Stone is a wonderful storyteller, I got lost in this futuristic world. It was a little slow at parts but the action more than made up for that.

Rhona Long wanted to be an actress what she got was the leader of the rebel force fighting against the machines. To bad she dies at the beginning of the book, smart of her to realize this was a probability and worked with her best friend a scientific genius to create her own clone. Rhona was the face of the rebels and she knew if she died they just might lose hope. She only told two other people what she was doing, not even her boyfriend/second-in-command Camus. It's been six months since her death, Camus and the others in charge decided not to tell anybody of her death only that she was MIA not wanting them to lose faith in their mission. Rhona and Samuel make it back to base barely and now Camus is having a hard time adjusting to the clone Rhona. That breaks Rhona's heart because as far as she knows she still loves him. Anyways, They continue to fight, there are attempts on Rhona's life and one of the other underground bases are attacked. They know it's a trap but they can't leave any fellow humans behind so sending out an SOS to everyone left they charge in to save the day.

I love how this book's timeline is spread out as much as it is, it's more believable than if everything happened all at once. Overall, "There is a storm on the horizon. A time of hardship and pain. This battle has been won, but the war against the machines rages on. Skynet's global network remains strong, but we will not quit, until all of it is destroyed. This is John Connor. There is no fate but what we make." Yes yes yes that's from Terminator also but it fits, the second book, Counterpart, is due out in October. I really did enjoy this one even if it reminded me of Terminator Fan Fiction.  

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