This is not an ordinary book: it's a BookCrossing book! BookCrossing books are world travelers - they like to have adventures and make new friends...and with your help, they can even write home to say what they've been doing! (You may remain anonymous if you wish.)

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I've enjoyed Martinez's books in the past, but I haven't gotten around to this one. Hopefully the hard-boiled robot detective can find a new reader. :D

Friday, February 05, 2021: sending some goodies to the US participants in the SF sweeps. Happy reading!

Released for GoryDetails's GBBC challenge and Davros-10's 2021 Science Fiction Challenge.

USPS tracking 9549 0104 3303 1036 2601 51
ETA 2/26

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Thanks for finding this book! Won't you please make a journal entry and let its previous readers know how & where you found it? What do you think of it? What will you do with it when you're done?

This is now your book, and you may do as you please with it: keep it as long as you wish, share it with a friend, or leave it where someone else can find it!

Have you ever wondered where your books go after they leave your hands? Join BookCrossing and you'll be able to follow them as new readers make journal entries - sometimes from surprisingly far-flung locations.

BookCrossing: making the whole world a library!

Wow! Thank you for the fantastic package of goodies! I was not expecting something like this at all! I feel so spoiled! And there's a wishlist book included! Thank you so much!

I'm hoping to do another sci-fi box this year, (unless someone else starts one first which would be great too!) not sure when as I've still some books to read to get anywhere near ready to even start a thread. And I have several non-sci-fi books in my reading queue at the moment. Anyway, the books you sent would make a great addition to a box! Keep an eye out for it; I hope you can join!

The mail carrier jammed the package into the mailbox really well! I had to get some leverage to pull it out! ...some of the stamps didn't survive. :( And that reminds me, thank you for all the fabulous stamps! Those in better shape I'll pass along on the next stamps sweeps. :)

Another fun choice! A completely sci-fi take on the detective stories of days gone by. And one with a robot designed for world domination to boot! Not that he's keen on it.

What a fun read!

It's like they took the world of Futurama and threw it into a 1950s noir detective story. And the detective is a robot that was built by a mad genius bent on destroying Empire City! Hahahaha! Only the mad genius never thought his creation would become sentient and turn him in.

Now, Mack Megaton is a cabbie just scrapping by until his neighbors, the only humans he likes, are kidnapped. What's a robot, designed for smashing-turned cabbie, to do when their little psychic child leaves a note behind pleading for Mack to find them?

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One of the starting books for the To the Stars: A Science Fiction Bookbox 3.0!

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I'm claiming this book from the To the Stars: A Science Fiction Bookbox 3.0. I've enjoyed other books by Martinez, including my favorite, Emperor Mollusk versus the Sinister Brain, and this one looks fun.

Later: Fun twist on the sentient-robot plot. Meet our protagonist:

"Name's Mack Megaton. I'm a bot. Or automated citizen, as the Learned Council liked to phrase it.... I was barely two years old and weighed a compact seven hundred and sixteen pounds. That's light when you're seven feet tall and made entirely of metal. I could punch through concrete and bend steel. I could not, however, tie a bow tie."

Very noir/retro feel to this, for all the technology. Mack has his own interesting back-story; he was created as a devastating war-bot, but opted out, and is now on probation on his way to gaining citizenship. As a condition of his probation, his atomic power-core was removed, so now he runs on (costly) electricity and has to work pretty hard to pay the bills. Such is bot-life?

Anyway, he's become friends with a neighbor who helps him with that fiddly bow-tie - a requirement at his current job - and it's this friendship that leads him to get involved in a domestic dispute, leading to more complications. And then it all escalates to a galactic-level conspiracy; how's one beleagured ex-war-bot to cope?

[There's a TV Tropes page on the novel, with some entertaining tidbits.]

I left this book in this magnificent Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

** 2024 Never Judge a Book By Its Cover challenge, for the "neckwear" theme. **

** 2024 Science Fiction challenge. **

** 2024 Keep Them Moving challenge. **