Robota, by Doug Chiang and Orson Scott Card

[Omphalos]

Though the venerable name of Orson Scott Card is associated with this week's book, the project was the brainchild of its illustrator, Doug Chiang. If you believe the introductory material, and I have no reason not to, Chiang has been playing with the concepts behind the story for the better part of his life. I suppose its just kismet that he was able to go on to such wild success as a graphic artist, eventually becoming an art director at LucasArts and managing the art projects for the second trilogy of Star Wars movies. This story concerns itself with Earth of the future, rather than a galaxy of the past, though. With a serpentine plot, this book has just enough problems with it to take it down to an average rating, but also has art that is fantastic enough to catapult it back to the top; at least for some. For me, three out of five stars, though without the illustrations it would rate much lower....Please click here, or on the book cover above, to be taken to the complete review..