Penrose is a world inhabited solely by sentient robots whose origins are so far distant they are no longer remembered. Like humans these robots are mortal, form relationships and produce offspring; this last being achieved by the ‘female’ robot ‘twisting’ metal from the ‘male’ to form the nascent brain of the child. They form nation states that come into conflict over resources (primarily metal ores) and exist in a civilisation that is a surprising but plausible mix of high and low technology. The book follows the fortunes of three robots caught up in these resource conflicts in a story that is unexpectedly strong in character development, maintains a strong pace and constantly surprises the reader with both its plotting and world building.
As described above it would be easy to be suspicious that this will be no more than a normal SF military thriller with humans replaced by robots that aren’t that much different to humans and this was very much my fear on starting Twisted Metal. Too often SF robots/androids come across as just faster, smarter humans in metal skins; they seem to think and act in much the same way as humans. This is often acceptable in SF stories where they are typically interacting with humans; examples such as Banks’ drones and Asher’s golems are fine if the reader doesn’t examine them too critically but ultimately they always seem to have much the same thought patterns as humans. Here Ballantyne has created a purely robot civilisation and so I was hoping for a bit more and, to a large extent, Ballantyne has delivered that.
These robots are no smarter than humans which is fine; it seems unlikely that you can cram significantly more intelligence into hardware limited by the space available. But they do have very much their own way of thinking with their own creation myths, the comforts of home symbolised by a hot forge, and attitudes towards things like pollution (organic growth) that are uniquely robot centric. And yet their motivations are still very human which is plausible considering they are driven by similar competition for relationships and resources.
All together Twisted Metal dispelled my fears and lived up to my hopes. I was quickly drawn into the world Ballantyne has created and he kept me turning the pages right up to a strong if somewhat predictable cliff hanging ending, leaving me looking forward to the sequel.
As described above it would be easy to be suspicious that this will be no more than a normal SF military thriller with humans replaced by robots that aren’t that much different to humans and this was very much my fear on starting Twisted Metal. Too often SF robots/androids come across as just faster, smarter humans in metal skins; they seem to think and act in much the same way as humans. This is often acceptable in SF stories where they are typically interacting with humans; examples such as Banks’ drones and Asher’s golems are fine if the reader doesn’t examine them too critically but ultimately they always seem to have much the same thought patterns as humans. Here Ballantyne has created a purely robot civilisation and so I was hoping for a bit more and, to a large extent, Ballantyne has delivered that.
These robots are no smarter than humans which is fine; it seems unlikely that you can cram significantly more intelligence into hardware limited by the space available. But they do have very much their own way of thinking with their own creation myths, the comforts of home symbolised by a hot forge, and attitudes towards things like pollution (organic growth) that are uniquely robot centric. And yet their motivations are still very human which is plausible considering they are driven by similar competition for relationships and resources.
All together Twisted Metal dispelled my fears and lived up to my hopes. I was quickly drawn into the world Ballantyne has created and he kept me turning the pages right up to a strong if somewhat predictable cliff hanging ending, leaving me looking forward to the sequel.
