Tag: Eating Robots

Eating Robots by Stephen Oram

this is going to be short, because I found myself saying the same thing over and over

Eating RobotsEating Robots and Other Stories

by Stephen Oram

eARC, 107 pg.
SilverWood Books, 2017

Read: April 27 – 29, 2017


I flipped through my thesaurus to find some decent synonyms for imaginative, because I need a few to talk about this collection. Didn’t find any that I liked, alas — this collection needs me to say something more than imaginative, just to avoid being dull and repetitive.

These stories are short — it’s not fair to call most of these stories, they’re more like scenes. Hints of a story, character studies, maybe hints of a scene — and on the one hand you can see most to of these happening in other parts of the same world — but they don’t have to, there could be a 30 different future realities represented here.

These are almost entirely too short. Some of the character moments are great — but even they don’t satisfy. The longer stories (there are not that many of them) barely seemed long enough to be a decent story — and they were good. There is a strong Twilight Zone feel to almost every plot and circumstance in the book — updated, like Rod Serling for the 21st Century.

I can not say it enough — Oram can write. He’s got a great imagination, and a mind for Science Fiction. But between the length and his approach, I just couldn’t get into any of the stories, I couldn’t care about anyone or anything in this book. I respect these stories, but I didn’t like any of them. I can easily see me being alone in that, though, if someone came along and told me that this was one of the best collections they read this year, I’d understand. I wouldn’t agree, but I could see where they were coming from. I hope Oram finds his audience (or that they find him), sadly, I’m not part of it.

I received a copy of this book from b00k r3vi3w Tours in return for this post. Thanks!

—–

3 Stars

Eating Robots by Stephen Oram Book Tour

Welcome to our Book Tour stop for Eating Robots. Along with this blurb about the book, my take on it will be along in an hour or so (the link’ll work when the post goes live).

Book Details:

Book Title:  Eating Robots and Other Stories
Author: Stephen Oram
Category: Science Fiction, 107 pages
Publisher: SilverWood Books
Release date: May 31, 2017

Book Description:

The future is bright…or is it?

Step into a high-tech vision of the future with the author of Quantum Confessions and Fluence, Stephen Oram.

Featuring health-monitoring mirrors, tele-empathic romances and limb-repossessing bailiffs, Eating Robots explores the collision of utopian dreams and twisted realities in a world where humanity and technology are becoming ever more intertwined.

Sometimes funny, often unsettling, and always with a word of warning, these thirty sci-fi shorts will stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page.

 

Buy the Book

Goodreads  Amazon India  Amazon US

Meet the Author:

Stephen Oram writes thought provoking stories that mix science fiction with social comment, mainly in a recognisable near-future. He is the Author in Residence at Virtual Futures’, Stephen Oramonce described as the ‘Glastonbury of cyberculture’. He has collaborated with scientists and future-tech people to write short stories that create debate about potential futures, most recently with the Human Brain Project and Bristol Robotics Laboratory as part of the Bristol Literature Festival.

As a teenager he was heavily influenced by the ethos of punk. In his early twenties he embraced the squatter scene and was part of a religious cult, briefly. He did some computer stuff in what became London’s silicon roundabout and is now a civil servant with a gentle attraction to anarchism.

He has two published novels – Quantum Confessions and Fluence – and several shorter pieces.

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén