The Robots of Gotham

A thrilling adventure in a world one step away from total subjugation by machines.

After long years of war, the United States has sued for peace, yielding to a brutal coalition of nations ruled by fascist machines. One quarter of the country is under foreign occupation. Manhattan has been annexed by a weird robot monarchy, and in Tennessee, a permanent peace is being delicately negotiated between the battered remnants of the U.S. government and an envoy of implacable machines.

Canadian businessman Barry Simcoe arrives in occupied Chicago days before his hotel is attacked by a rogue war machine. In the aftermath, he meets a dedicated Russian medic with the occupying army, and 19 Black Winter, a badly damaged robot. Together they stumble on a machine conspiracy to unleash a horrific plague - and learn that the fabled American resistance is not as extinct as everyone believes. Simcoe races against time to prevent the extermination of all life on the continent . . . and uncover a secret that America's machine conquerors are desperate to keep hidden.

Book features :

• The Robots of Gotham combines elements from multiple recent blockbusters, including Batman (a rich protagonist with a secret identity), the Terminator series (Skynet-like murderous intelligences), Transformers (giant robots battling in dense urban landscapes), Pacific Rim (piloting giant mechs), and Iron Man (powered armor in battle against super-powered opponents).
• The Robots of Gotham combines themes found in the most popular recent video games, including Titanfall (giant mech combat), Batman: Arkham Knight (masked vigilante in a violent metropolis), Horizon Zero Dawn (advanced robot ecology), Fallout (power armor), and Call of Duty (squad street combat with advanced weaponry).
• The Robots of Gotham amplifies several headline-making national trends. The skies of Chicago are filled with weaponized spy-drones. The U.S. government drastically tightens its borders against select nations, with dramatic results.
• The Robots of Gotham builds directly on recent huge leaps in the most exciting and hotly discussed fields in popular science, including robotics, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and drone automation.

About the Author

Todd McAulty earned a a Ph.D. using supercomputers to solve problems involving massive amounts of data. He was a manager at the start-up that created Internet Explorer, and currently is a Director at a machine learning company. This is his first novel.