Tony Ballantyne’s science fiction tends very much towards the hard side of things; his earlier AI trilogy looked at artificial intelligence and Von Neumann Machines, both their pros and their cons. Now this Penrose series, of which Blood and Iron is the second book, is very different but still definitely leaning towards the hard side of SF. These books are written purely from the perspective of sentient robots living on a planet where they are the only sentient beings. This is really not a trivial task if you want to create a truly robotic culture rather than just human attitudes put into metal bodies. Just what sort of motivations will a purely robotic culture have? How will they shape their environment? What sort of family life will they have? What of love? Ballantyne does an excellent job of addressing these questions. The first book – Twisted Metal – covers a war in which one state is dominating all others on their continent. Their technology level is pitched interestingly low; they have atomic power, trains and fight their wars with ‘infantry,’ relatively crude firearms and swords. Throughout this book the question of their origin keeps cropping up without resolution; were the first robots made or did they evolve? In this book this question moves more to the front though it is still left (presumably) for the third, as yet unwritten, book to answer.
The war of the first book has been won but now rebellion is stirring with within the ranks of the victors and elsewhere on another continent humans have arrived from space. Human technology is superior but there is something the robots have that the humans want creating an inevitable conflict. Behind this plot Ballantyne continues to explore the culture and motivations of the robotic society and in doing so holds up a slightly warped mirror to our own human culture. Robots have no real need for organics and view biological life as being slightly disgusting; something that is seen as a contamination in their predominantly metal world and that a well-run home, town or city should be kept free of. After the humans have arrived a brief dialogue between human and robot nicely encapsulates up their different attitudes:
Lake Ochoa shone with the healthy blue of copper salts.
…
‘Shame you poisoned the lake.’
‘Poisoned? That’s copper!’
I love these books; Ballantyne does an excellent job of not only making the robot culture consistent, believable and logical but also managing to make the story largely character driven with; each of the main characters has very much their own voice and motivations whilst still staying consistent with the overriding robotic culture. The writing is deceptively simple, always flowing smoothly and a joy to read and, despite their essentially mechanical nature, the main characters are all easy to empathise with.
Sadly these books don’t seem to be hugely popular but I have noticed that Neal Asher is very complimentary giving this one the same four stars that I have, so at least I’m in good company! I’m looking forward to the third book, which will, I believe, complete the series.
4/5 stars
The war of the first book has been won but now rebellion is stirring with within the ranks of the victors and elsewhere on another continent humans have arrived from space. Human technology is superior but there is something the robots have that the humans want creating an inevitable conflict. Behind this plot Ballantyne continues to explore the culture and motivations of the robotic society and in doing so holds up a slightly warped mirror to our own human culture. Robots have no real need for organics and view biological life as being slightly disgusting; something that is seen as a contamination in their predominantly metal world and that a well-run home, town or city should be kept free of. After the humans have arrived a brief dialogue between human and robot nicely encapsulates up their different attitudes:
Lake Ochoa shone with the healthy blue of copper salts.
…
‘Shame you poisoned the lake.’
‘Poisoned? That’s copper!’
I love these books; Ballantyne does an excellent job of not only making the robot culture consistent, believable and logical but also managing to make the story largely character driven with; each of the main characters has very much their own voice and motivations whilst still staying consistent with the overriding robotic culture. The writing is deceptively simple, always flowing smoothly and a joy to read and, despite their essentially mechanical nature, the main characters are all easy to empathise with.
Sadly these books don’t seem to be hugely popular but I have noticed that Neal Asher is very complimentary giving this one the same four stars that I have, so at least I’m in good company! I’m looking forward to the third book, which will, I believe, complete the series.
4/5 stars
