Authors: T.R. Hudson
Published: 2022
Tags: sci-fi, horror, apocalyptic, textual
Length: 210 pages
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America has fallen. Her states divided into haves and have nots. The East, now a shell of its former glory, ravaged by a terrorist attack that has left them in darkness and now lead by Deluge Worldwide, the largest corporation on Earth. The West, a functioning society built on progressive values and looking to export their ideals back East.
Michael Connors is a Recruiter for Deluge's army. A former soldier and guinea pig for a government experiment gone wrong, Michael is uniquely adept at his job. One day, he is approached with a mission, even he may not be able to complete. Assassinate a scientist on the other side of the country.
Michael must survive the months long journey across the US, partnered with the brutal and psychopathic Donahue, who's devil may care attitude makes life difficult for those in his way and those left behind in his wake. He has a whole world to contend with, but the most dangerous enemy may just be the one from within his own soul.
What would happen to America after its collapse? T.R. Hudson’s Automaton gives a peek into what the United States would look like after a cataclysmic event splits it down the middle, leaving only an East Coast billionaire--Alex Mercer of the megacorporation Deluge Worldwide, and the Western Pacific States Republic--a socialist state, locked in a constant battle to cross the wasteland between them. Michael Connors, a soldier for Deluge and a victim of a science-fiction (and frankly realistic) military experiment that left him unable to feel emotion, is tasked with traveling the gulf of land between the warring states.
Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy in style and thought, Hudson writes about a world where questions are plenty, and answers are few. Where does the line between apathy and nihilism lie? Is there absolution? Can the old liberal order be saved? Should it be saved, or does this new apocalypse reveal the truth of human nature: "No more law. No more right. There’s just the fuckers and the fucked," as Donahue puts it.
Aside from a few spelling or KDP printing errors (chapters mixed up), Automaton has no prosaic barriers to entry, and even the brutal, sometimes sexual violence--which is not shied away from--can be palatably read. More could be said of the story’s near-predictive elements, but that’s a surprise best left for the reader. In fine, Hudson writes a beautiful, compelling narrative that draws the reader into his post-apocalypse with stunning prose and style.
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