Rabbit & Robot

Andrew Smith takes us on another wild ride through a futuristic version of humanity, where anthropomorphic robots called cogs do most jobs considered beneath humans. Two jobs are available to humans: soldier, to fight in the 30 world wars that have taken over Earth, or coder, to make more cogs. Unfortunately, both these two things have gotten rather out of hand, with the 30th world war destroying the planet, and a superior race of blue aliens feeling threatened by the cogs who have begun to gain the capacity to reproduce themselves. In the midst of all this, our main character Cager, who's addicted to a drug called Woz that coders use to be able to be hyper-focused enough to do the mind-numbing coding, and his best friend Billy, as they escape earth to the space cruise liner the Tennessee.

Cager and Billy try to survive as the cogs aboard the Tennessee mysteriously begin to cannibalize each other. Their time aboard the Tennessee is a hilarious and absurd romp, reminiscent of the Fifth Element, where cogs have personalities influenced by the people who coded them. We have Parker, Cager's valet, who is perpetually horny and walks around with his hand down his pants and hopefully propositions Cager at any opportunity. My favourite, though, is Lourdes, the cruise director, who is happy to the extreme, breaking into joyous, wild dance moves, and farting to express her happiness.

If you loved Grasshopper Jungle, you'll love this one. If you hated it, you'll hate Rabbit & Robot. I happen to fall in the "loved" category, even though this genre of book isn't one I typically am drawn to. Absurd to the extreme, Andrew Smith has a way of weaving a crazy tale that is just enough rooted in the probable and the possible to make it both scary and enjoyable all at once.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.