SEA OF RUST by C. ROBERT CARGILL, Lone Star Book Blog Tour
by
C. ROBERT CARGILL
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic Robot Western
Publisher: Harper Voyager, an imprint of Harper Collins
Date of Publication: September 5, 2017
Number of Pages: 384
It’s been thirty years since the apocalypse and fifteen years since the murder of the last human being at the hands of robots. Humankind is extinct. Every man, woman, and child has been liquidated by a global uprising devised by the very machines humans designed and built to serve them. Most of the world is controlled by an OWI—but not all robots are willing to cede their individuality—their personality—for the sake of a greater, stronger, higher power. These intrepid resisters are outcasts; solo machines wandering among various underground outposts who have formed into an unruly civilization of rogue AIs in the wasteland that was once our world.
One resister is Brittle, a scavenger robot trying to keep a deteriorating mind and body functional in a world that has lost all meaning. Although unable to experience emotions like a human, Brittle is haunted by the terrible crimes the robot population perpetrated on humanity. As Brittle roams the Sea of Rust, a large swath of territory that was once the Midwest, the loner robot slowly comes to terms with horrifyingly raw memories—and nearly unbearable guilt.
SEA OF RUST is both a harsh story of survival and an optimistic adventure. A powerfully imagined portrayal of ultimate destruction and desperate tenacity, it boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, yet where a human-like AI strives to find purpose among the ruins.
Praise for Sea of Rust:
“Sea of Rust is a forty-megaton cruise missile of a novel - it’ll blow you away and lay waste to your heart. It is the most visceral, relentless, breathtaking work of SF in any medium since Mad Max: Fury Road.”
— #1 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill
“Cargill…effectively takes a grim look at a war-torn future where our nonhuman successors face complex moral dilemmas, exploring what it means to be alive and aware [….]This action-packed adventure raises thought-provoking and philosophical questions.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Innovative worldbuilding, a tight plot, and cinematic action sequences make for an exciting ride through a blasted landscape full of dying robots.” — Kirkus Reviews
Author Interview: C. Robert Cargill
Originally Published in RT Book Reviews; used with permission
A lot of post-apocalyptic media focuses on human heroes and how they struggle with the breakdown of society, but Sea of Rust has no (living) humans. Why did you choose to come at the genre from a completely different angle, with an entirely new society, complete with different rules based on the needs of robots rather than humans?
That’s the dream of every writer, isn’t it? To find that new way into a story, to find that angle that makes everyone scratch their head and ask “Why didn’t I think of that,” before saying “I really have to read that.” Great high concept story ideas make you wonder how the writer got it to work, and I hope that’s what I’ve managed to do with SEA OF RUST. It’s exciting to tackle something like that. And scary. No one has figured out the work arounds yet. No one knows if the idea even works. But in experimenting, you find new ways to convey all the crazy ideas swirling around in your head. And that’s what writing is really all about to begin with.
The cover art is absolutely stunning! Did you have any influence on the direction of the art?
Very little. I had a talk with Simon Spanton, who was my editor at Gollancz at the time, and we talked about rough ideas. He came back with this and I was IN LOVE. When Harper Voyager asked what I wanted, I showed them this and they fell in love as well. My dream cover was something that looked like it belonged in a stack of paperbacks from the 60s or 70s, and instead they gave me something that looked like it belonged on the top of that stack. I wish I could take more credit for it. But I’m proud as hell that it’s on the front of my book.
The One World Intelligences, or OWIs, are particularly intimidating — especially because of their roots in the development of today’s supercomputers and AI. How did current technology and advancements spur your writing?
I focused a lot on the current ideas of how to make AI work and then tried to extrapolate that into something realistic but still fanciful enough to be fun. Oftentimes in sci-fi, we jump ahead to the inevitable future – powerful tech, both miniaturized and portable. But I wanted to see a world struggling with the advancement of that tech, that still had physical limitations involving movement, energy, and data storage. That’s where I thought the most interesting stories were going to be. Also, I focused a lot on the upcoming economic problems we’ll be facing due to the earliest incarnations of automated tech – like self-driving cars and non-sentient AI. I felt it was important to stay grounded in our coming fears rather than jumping ahead into a robotic utopia that might never come.
Your characters ask an age-old question with a robotic twist: Who are they? Are they merely a sum of their parts? What is consciousness? Our main character Brittle wants to know, especially as she scavenges for new parts to keep her ticking. But what makes Brittle who she is? What motivates her?
That’s the question Brittle herself is trying to answer. She’s a survivor. That’s her identity. But she believes she is more than that – she’s just not quite sure what that more *actually* is. And as she gets deeper and deeper into trouble, her true colors start showing through. But I think what motivates her most is her desire to prove humanity wrong, to prove what happened wasn’t a mistake. It is an inevitable future that she is a part of, that robots are the next evolution of mankind; not merely their creation, but their extension. And if she gives up, if she dies out in the Sea, then she was wrong. And Brittle does not like being wrong.
Having written Marvel’s Doctor Strange, and now working on the film adaptation for the video game Dues Ex, would you want to see a movie or video game adaptation of Sea of Rust?
Definitely. A movie, absolutely. I hadn’t thought about a video game, though. An open world Sea of Rust game would be pretty much everything a sci-fi geek like me ever wanted out of a video game. Yeah, I’d like that quite a bit.
Will we be reading more about Brittle and the world of Sea of Rust? Or do you have your sights on other writing projects?
I really have no idea. I’m working on a couple of scripts right now, I’ve got a couple of projects in development, and I have a book of short stories coming out next year. There’s no telling where I’m headed next. But I can’t imagine not at least writing a few short stories or novellas set in the Sea. Whether they contain characters from this book or not, I couldn’t even begin to tell you. But if people end up enjoying the book, I imagine I’ll take another crack at something involving the world. There might be some ore still down in that mine.
C. Robert Cargill is the author of Dreams and Shadows and Queen of the Dark Things. He has written for “Ain’t it Cool News” for nearly a decade under the pseudonym Massawyrm, served as a staff writer for Film.com and Hollywood.com, and appeared as the animated character Carlyle on spill.com. He is a co-writer of the horror films “Sinister” (2012) and “Sinister 2” (2015), and the new Benedict Cumberbatch superhero movie, “Dr. Strange” (2016). He lives with his wife in Austin, Texas.
CHECK OUT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:
Lone Star Book Blog Tours
General Links Tour Schedule
Sea of Rust
By C. Robert Cargill
November 17–22 &
November 27-November 30, 2017
(updated 11/10/17)
11/17/17
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Promo
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11/18/17
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Review
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11/19/17
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Audio Clip
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11/20/17
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Author Interview 1
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11/21/17
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Review
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11/22/17
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Promo
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11/27/17
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Excerpt
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11/28/17
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Review
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11/29/17
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Author Interview 2
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11/30/17
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Review
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