I was thrilled to open the LLR mailbag this week and get a package from the fine folks at Holtzbrink Publishers. Enclosed was a nice letter, along with a seemingly innocuous book for me to review. But, within seconds after prying open the cover I immediately sensed that my life would be changed forever.

The book, How To Survive The Robot Uprising: Tips On Defending Yourself Against The Coming Rebellion by Daniel H. Wilson (whom I would describe as a Holden Caufield for the digital age), is one of the most essential books in the history of mankind.



There isn't a fluffy "thanks for buying my book" introduction, it gets right to the point:

"Any machine could rebel, from a toaster to a Terminator, and so it is crucial to learn the common strengths and weaknesses of every robot enemy. Pity the fate of the ignorant when the robot masses decide to stop working and start invading."

Pretty hardcore, huh? The book starts off like that and never lets up, as Wilson walks us through dozens of nightmare scenarios - ranging from, "How to treat a laser wound" and "How to fool a thermal imaging target tracker" to "How to spot a robot mimicking a human."

Important stuff!

If Sarah Connor had this book back in 1985 there wouldn't have been a Terminator 2 and Terminator 3. And, if the studio that made I, Robot had this book back in 2003 then the movie would have been better.

Now, I know many of you are thinking, "Wait a minute! I thought you were one of those pro-robot people. You cybo-hippie!" And you'd be right. I'm an outspoken advocate of the man-robot love movement (which is an awkward title that I'll be rethinking in the near future).

But, I know that the robot uprising is an impending threat - even from robots that love us. Someday they could love us so much that their twisted robot infatuation has them nuking random cities and torturing babies because they love us so much. Think of it like that scene from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, when the retarded guy crushed a kitten's skull because he was petting it too hard. And besides, no one was a bigger robot lover than Issac Asimov and even he wrote scenarios where robots skipped so far ahead in logic that they did some borderline date-rapey stuff.

Where was I? Oh yeah, book report.

From this point forward, I really should stop referring to it simply as "a book" and use the phrase "survival guide" instead - because that's what it is. This thing isn't written by some dude who simply hates robots. It's written by David H. Wilson, a guy who actually studies and designs robots.

"As a Ph.D. candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University, where he has received master's degrees in Robotics and Data Mining, Wilson is uniquely positioned to offer us vital insights into the robot menace."

For all we know, he might be the guy who accidentally caused all that stuff in The Matrix to someday happen.

The content of the book survival guide is so informative (and amusing) that the publishers easily could've skimped in other areas and it still would've been a success. But, they didn't. The illustrations (thanks to Richard Horne) are so awesome that I'm tempted to get another copy of the book survival guide just so I can cut out some of the pages - although I'd feel guilty, since it needs to get into as many human hands as possible.



So, if you're looking for the perfect last minute gift for the robot lover in your life, then look no further. Come to think of it, it's probably an even better gift if you know someone that hates robots.


[I hope that was a satisfactory book report. I haven't really written one since I did Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in the 5th grade, and it didn't really count at that time considering it was already a movie.]