Hour of the Robot by Paul R. McNamee

If someone plundered my brain for ideas, randomly lifting a bunch of favorites and then mixed it all together, they might have come up with this book. I mean, you got superheroes, aliens and robots in one city, duking it out. That’s pretty freaking epic. If you don’t think that combination is epic, you probably won’t like this book. Also, what’s the matter with you…seriously?
But really this book had me at the robot, the other things were a welcome bonus. In fact, do yourself a favor and if you haven’t yet read the official description all the way…don’t. It gives away way too much. It gives away something that occurs at 45%. This is why I avoid descriptions and movie trailers whenever possible. And yes, I understand, they gotta draw you in, but it shouldn’t be at the cost of narrative surprises.
Anyway, so yeah, in the city of Pallas there’s a new sheriff in town…no, not really, that’s just silly, but there is an alien referred to as The Alien, who is the city’s official protector and rescuer. The Alien is assisted by his metal bestie named, yeah, you guessed it, The Robot. But the latter is very much a behind the scenes player until circumstances force him to step up and step out of his comfort zone and right into the danger zone. There’s also another superhero, this one is an earthling, who protects the other i.e. crappier side of town, his name is, yes, that’s right, The Protector. Trench coat, fedora and a protégé, named to no one’s surprise The Understudy. Together in various combinations these awesome individuals will have to fight the evildoers of Pallas and uncover and try to foil a terrifying ploy of apocalyptic proportions.
So there you have it, a description that doesn’t give too much away and shouts and highlights all the awesomeness. Is it an all around awesome book…I’ll be honest and objective here, it took me about a chapter to get into, at first the writing came through kind of stilted and mechanical, but then the novel kicked into a higher gear and none of that mattered anymore. In fact, the writing style turned out to be quite suited for a robot story. No offense to any robots out there, but you don’t exactly associate them with froufrou overwrought melodramatics.
Overall, pure fun. Lots of fun. Oodles of action, terrific characters. Short dynamic entertaining read. 01110010 01100101 01100011 01101111 01101101 01101101 01100101 01101110 01100100 01100101 01100100. That’s Recommended in binary (robots know this). Thanks Netgalley.