Received via a Goodreads.com giveaway.

On sale September 25th, 2018.

Advanced Reader's Copy • Uncorrected Proof

***Received from a Goodreads Giveaway***

And, Billy, if you’re out there, text me.

A silly story with not much meat on it. I could see this being turned into a regular show for Adult Swim on The Cartoon Network with all the erections, farting robots, drug use/abuse, and the suspension of belief in a spaceship not having some type of way to communicate with each other aboard ship, no spacesuits, and with all people of earth being either coders or bonks (besides Cager’s family and Billy’s family) who would even spend time there? Maybe other 1 percenters? If so, then why the schools for bonks and coders? There again, for adult swim the logic would work fine. Sooooo, not my personal cup of tea but I could see the appeal to others. But, I was interested enough to push on and finish it. *sigh* And then a disappointing ending. There needed to be a little more. Or is there a book 2?

SPOILER —>what about the appearance of all the blue worms? The appearance of Mooney and Rabbit? What remains of earth? They are going into the unknown without knowing if there is even breathable air on earth. :/ Like I said, not for me. And that’s fine. :D <—END SPOILER

Additional note/comment: The author made sure you knew the main character was not gay but that he was ok with his best friend being gay and all the gay/bisexual robots. You're knocked over the head with the knowing. But then near the end, Cager is 'weirded out' by the robot giraffe's sexuality. (The giraffe is bisexual.) Was it really a character thing or was it the author?

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Starting book for the To the Stars: A Science Fiction Bookbox.

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I'm claiming this colorful softcover from the SF bookbox, despite the not-exactly-rave-review; will see what I think of it!

Later: I liked this better than Spatial did, though I also found lots of things that irked me. (For one thing, I think it could have been edited a lot better; there's so much repetition of the main themes that it got annoying, even though it made sense that the spoiled/shocked/drug-addled narrator might have a tendency to repeat himself.) And if you don't care for foul language, this isn't the book for you; there are something like 8 F-bombs on the first page alone, as the characters use them as casual punctuation.

That said, there's a certain weird/wacky entertainment in this survive-the-global-apocalypse-by-coincidence story. And it has some bits that tickled me; among them, there's a quick passing reference to the use of the moon as a graveyard for the Very Very Rich, which reminded me of the quirky but fun Dead Moon by Peter Clines, an audiobook with moon-as-cemetery-oops-zombies as its plot. (This book's moon-cemetery does not get zombified that we know of, and has nothing much to do with the story, but I still enjoyed the mention.) And the titular "Rabbit & Robot" refers to a very grisly and wildly popular TV show in-story, one that reminded me a lot of the Simpsons' "Itchy and Scratchy," with brutal treatment of the poor robot in every single episode. Its significance to the story? Um... well, the whole thing's a kind of AI-nightmare/object-lesson, with the human (probably) characters holding differing views as to the value and treatment of the androids, who come in a variety of styles and levels - and whose programming seems to have been done by someone with an appalling sense of cruelty. Some are manic/joyful - imagine the most fake-cheerful tour-guide you've ever met squealing with delight at everything you say; others are constantly woeful (like Marvin from "Hitchhiker's Guide"); some have violent tempers (though they're constrained to only damage themselves - at least at first); and, yes, there are some who are indistinguishable from humans. Well, except to the protagonist, who has a keen sense of smell and can tell real humans from androids. Or so he thinks...

Some of the androids are programmed to be very, very sexually excited, too - and not just the ones in the adults-only levels of the ship. (Yeah, it's that kind of ship.) It's played for humor-with-a-touch-of-pathos in the story, and we never do find out if the young attendant-bot who attaches himself to our hero has any self-awareness or not.

The cast is quite small (except for the 'bots, but even then only a few of them have key roles): two spoiled rich boys and their slightly-older mentor/guardian, who have come to the ship because one is trying to help the other kick his drug habit by tricking him up here for a cold-turkey withdrawal, and two not-rich girls who've sneaked on board disguised as 'bots. It takes a while for the two sets of characters to meet up, and that triggers changes in the relationship dynamics.

They learn soon enough that something awful has happened on Earth, with the chronic state-of-war situation going global and devastating - not that things were great even without war, what with pollution, climate change, catastrophic fires as a regular thing, and a populace for whom the only jobs are coding the 'bots and fighting the wars (the one job people don't seem to want to hand over to robots for some reason). The kids don't seem to be quite as shocked as one might think... but then they have other things to worry about: something's infecting the 'bots on the ship, who start devouring each other like movie-zombies...

It's a very, very odd book, and I agree that it might do well as an Adult Swim property; I can see an animated version of it being quite successful. (Especially the French-speaking bisexual giraffe {wry grin}.) While there were some nice plot points involving the what-does-it-mean-to-be-human question, overall the characters were rather flat and the resolution a bit underwhelming; still, the more bizarre and offbeat scenes did entertain me.

I left this book in the Little Free Library beside the City Hall on this lovely day; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2019 Keep Them Moving release challenge. ***

*** Released for the 2019 Science Fiction release challenge. ***