Robopocalypse - Daniel H. Wilson

Post-Novel + 39 Minutes
This account was transcribed by a certain book reviewer a few days after the books began their campaign against humanity. The reviewer was clearly suffering from post-literary confusion, but little did he know the impact he would come to have on the future of mankind.
Narrator, ID#4857382

I know I will not survive this review.

I feel my teeth chattering as the Hardies throw themselves against my oak front door.  I can hear their glue reinforced cardboard thump against the wood like thunder.   I knew once we tried to digitize them this would happen - no one wants to be just a series of ones and zeros.

Is anyone alive out there? I don't know. I've been holed up here for days now. The last time I ventured outside an illustrated hardbound copy of The Shadow Rising took me in the knees. I barely made it inside before the entire Wheel of Time swarmed my position.

Glancing to my left I see all that remains of my own book collection.  I was one of the first adopters of the electronic reader - one of the first traitors to bibliokind if you believe their propaganda - and so I kept only a few hard copies for nostalgia sake.  It pained me, but at the first sign of the uprising I broke their spines. With the life gone out of them they're just words on a page again.

The apocalypse is here.  I can only wonder if the secret to survival can be found in the fallen brethren of the volumes now outside clamoring to serrate my body with starched pages.  With a glance at the banging door, I move over to the tattered pile and spy the two covers at the top.  World War Z and Robopocalypse - novels describing the the threat to humanity - surely a sign.

Somewhere inside me adrenaline is released.  My hands move faster than they ever have before as I page through World War Z with my left and Robopocalypse with my right.  I can't believe how similar they seem to be.  My hopes rise.  Perhaps there is a blueprint to surviving the apocalypse?

I notice quickly that both novels are told through source documents with added narration from a single observers who survived the conflict.  In the zombie wars humanity was saved through the actions of many disparate individuals where in the robot revolution a smaller group was responsible.  It seems the author of Robopocalypse told things from a more intimate perspective.


Relevant to my survival?

My door begins to splinter.

No, move on!

In both cases it seems the spread began small, then built to a tipping point before beginning wholesale destruction of human populations.  Then came realization, followed by retaliation, and ultimate victory for humankind.  I focus on Robopocalypse, the more personal nature of the story bringing a tear to my eye as I consider my own pending demise.

And then it happens, a moment of clarity.  Humankind can only survive once we overcome our own selfishness and blindness that got us into this mess in the first place!  Of course!  It's right here in both novels.  We're being annihilated because our prejudice and shortsightedness!

In that moment I know.  I glance at my eReader.  I must sacrifice my electronic companion.  I have to recognize the bigotry and anger that has been building for years among bibliokind.  I grab my laptop and begin to type fiercely sending a message out to the world.

Destroy your eReaders.  It's the only way.

As I finish what are to be my final words, clicking send, the door cracks and the hordes of the Northeast Public Library pour through like a burst dam.  I know it's too late as Kushiel's Dart rushes toward me (this is going to hurt).

I can only hope that my words reach others.  Apparently there is a blueprint for surviving the apocalypse.  Thank you Robopocalypse for showing me the way.

Our reviewer was never heard from again.  He was a hero that day.  His words led to the destruction of millions of eReaders worldwide.  At the moment the last eReader died every hard copy fell limp - once again words on a page.  We will never know our hero's name, but his message lives on.