Battlestar Suburbia

It's such an obvious premise that none of us actually think about it. It's not terminators or human looking robots that will take over the world but all of our gadgets and gizmos.

The human race is going extinct and we are only good as cleaners or servicers for the gadget ruling class.

The humour is in the humanistic traits that are given to the gadgets reminiscent of the "silicon heaven" speech given by Kryten from 'Red Dwarf'.

Darren is making a living by running a charge cart which gives him limited independence separating him out from most humans. Unfortunately when an accident befalls his charge-cart he has to find another way to earn money. Unfortunately this is the first in a long line of accidents he goes through in the novel.

The humour is sometimes slapstick sometimes just very reminiscent of John Cleese's Mr Fawlty! You will find yourself laughing out loud, I certainly did at some of the scenes.

I loved it from beginning to end, it's such an easy and amusing read but also very well written. The characterisation makes the machines credible with families, lives and politics just like humans.

I recommend this to all science fiction / fantasy fans as a light relief to the current trend of doorstop-sized trilogies.

I was given the novel free by netgalley.com for my fair and honest review.

Ever since reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as a teenager, humorous sci-fi has been a favorite genre of mine. Many have tried to follow in Douglas Adams's footsteps, but none can match his brilliance and wit. I'm not sure if Chris McCrudden sees himself as carrying on Adams's literary mantle, but I would add Battlestar Suburbia to the list of sci-fi comedy efforts that fall short.

Millennia in the future, machines are self-aware and sentient, and humans are only tolerated as cleaners. Humans live in orbiting housing projects, commuting to earth for their daily cleaning jobs. A few humans more or less accidentally start a human revolt, with the assistance of bread maker who has developed compassion for the plight of humans.

It took me a while to wrap my mind around the sentient machines, and I never really did embrace them. If it's been millennia, why do these machines retain their human-serving forms? In the case of the bread maker, a human engineer transfers her consciousness into a motorcycle. Why wouldn't machines take initiative to develop more versatile bodies? It makes no sense.

The premise didn't grab me, and, while there were certainly some original and funny ideas, the story didn't engage me. I got bored and found myself skimming to the end. Good effort, but not that great.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

I will not be publishing a review as this book did not live up to my expectations. I enjoy futuristic settings that stretch the imagination presented with a tongue-in-cheek style but I found this difficult to follow. Sorry it’s not for me.

I won't be reviewing this book as I couldn't get through it. It's an insult to the late, great Douglas Adams to compare this with Hitchhiker's. Sorry!

I really liked this book. Reminded of Douglas Adam's work ( of course) It was equal parts hilarious and interesting.

Join misfits Darren, Kelly and Pam, the breadmaker, and their wonderfully eccentric family and friends, as they band together to save ... or is that destroy ... humanity from our evil robot overlords. A delightfully entertaining space-capade. Reminiscent of a mash up between Hitchhikers and Red Dwarf. Will definitely be keeping an eye out for the sequel.

This is a comedy sci-fi novel which follows a couple of humans - Kelly and Darren - on the wrong side of the law when the world has been taken over by sentient machines.

The author has tried to follow along the same lines as Hitchhiker's Guide in terms of the style of the book. However, the storyline is very different. Millenia ago, AI took over the earth and most humans have been reduced to nothing more than a cleaning crew. Kelly and Darren accidentally kill a machine and have to go on the run. In short, they stumble onto something much bigger and things go on from there.

I didn't have a problem with the writing of the book itself. It was easy to read and very light. The idea is inventive and original. I enjoyed the ladies in the hairdressers (without spoilers that's as much as I can say but I thought they were the best thing in the book by far). Unfortunately, I think my praise ends there.

I couldn't really engage with any of the characters. I don't think they were really fully developed - the author gives the idea of what he wants the character's motives and personality to be, but I never felt like I got that from the characters themselves.

It wasn't that funny. You could tell it was meant to be, but I just didn't quite get there. It was more sort of cheesy than actually amusing for me.

The main negative for me was the machines themselves. I just found it hard to work out what they were meant to be like, which made the whole thing impossible to imagine. I mean, are they meant to be lifesized? If so, I just don't understand how they interact with each other as it says in the book, because most of the machines, like the smartphones, tazers, little handheld instruments, are too small. When I was trying to imagine it they were sort of giant versions, but that was never made clear in the book. I also struggled to work out if they had real faces, and what they were meant to look like, what their arms and legs were meant to be like (if they had any) and just generally it seemed a bit vague in terms of description. I just couldn't see what the author obviously saw. Maybe it was just me but the whole thing was half formed in my mind and so it was hard for me to get on board with it.

I found at the end that this is the beginning of series of books. I don't think a series is necessary here, the ending was a good end to the story. I think a continuation would just be dragging the idea out and maybe making it less satisfactory and even more strained. Personally I'm not going to be looking out for the next book or books in the series.

This book might appeal more to younger teen boys, for example, or those who are just tech mad and might find it more enjoyable to fill in the blanks with their own ideas of what the machines and their world would be like. But then I think the parts I did enjoy - the shop and the ladies - would be lost on them.

If I tell you that I spent my teenage years bingeing on the books of Douglas Adams and episodes of Red Dwarf (yes, the first time around when Dave Lister didn’t look mad/sad in his leather jacket and hat) that is really going to age me, isn’t it? However, I think I am exactly the age group that was going to enjoy this book the most because it reminded me of those things I enjoyed in my youth. (Middle-aged people, yes.)

Although I am afraid, for me, that no writer is ever going to be able to reach the genius heights of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, this book comes as close as anyone is likely to get. It manages to attain that perfect level of absurdity and humour balanced with wit and intelligence and a healthy dollop of pop culture references to spot and snigger over as you wend your way through the book, a really delicious mix to relish.

We are set in a dystopian future where machines have got sick of being used as tools by infinitely less intelligent units, namely humans, and have turned the tables so that humans now serve them, mostly in the form of mopping floors. This happens not in a creepy Terminator/Matrix way, but in a humorous way where some machines actually secretly decide that they miss having their touchscreens fondled… that pretty much gives you a taste of what to expect. Throw in a very ‘mobile’ hair salon with the best pun name ever whose clientele are at least several millennia old and you must be totally intrigued by now, surely.

Humans have similarly decided that they aren’t overly happy about cleaning up after toasters and a resistance has formed, while some of the machines in the higher echelons have dreams of taking a form more physical, more squashy, more feeling… Quite what will happen when these two opposing desires clash, well you will have to read the book to find out.

This book is extremely well-written – very clever, very witty, great fun and with plenty of action and absurd plotting to keep you intrigued to the last page and beyond. The jokes appealed completely to my warped sense of humour, even the really, really corny/bad ones. In fact, especially the really, really corny/bad ones (seriously, the salon name, genius). I have ordered a paperback copy of this book and I am already looking forward to the sequel. In space, no one can hear you…tapping your fingers in impatience to see what happens next. I highly recommend this book to everyone…man, woman, cyborg…of any age or persuasion, but especially ageing Dwarfers like me.

Comparisons between this book and the work of Douglas Adams and Jasper Fforde are well-deserved.

In Battlestar Suburbia Chris McCrudden has skilfully created a futuristic dystopia, in which machines rule and humans are only good for cleaning and some lascivious dial-twiddling, whilst simultaneously retaining and lampooning the morality and values of contemporary society, with all of its obsession with smartphones and lolcats.

The writing style is direct, fast-paced and light in tone; packed with puns and witty pop- and historical-culture references. I particularly liked the salon ladies, once I got used to the visceral creepiness of their physical states.

Our heroes, as listed in the blurb, are hapless Darren (who can’t change a light bulb without accidentally electrocuting someone), fearless Kelly (and her slightly intimidating mum), and efficient Pam (who manages to maintain a cosy family life whilst secretly enjoying a little dabble on the dark side of the forbidden web). The female characters are all strong and smart from the get-go, but poor Darren needs a little warming up!

He starts the story as a blunderer who is incapable of crossing the street without accidentally starting a world war, and indeed it isn’t long before his simple problems of how to get some cash become the slightly bigger ones of staying alive, untangling himself from the centre of a world-domination scheme and saving the world. It’s a good job he grows in confidence, initiative and bravery as the story unrolls!

The villain of the piece is the insane megalomaniac type that sends shivers through you as he casual-violences his way through a disturbed scheme to rip apart established society just to fulfil his own little fantasy. He definitely had me side-eyeing my smartphone! Still, what seems like pure selfishness actually illustrated the underlying and overarching theme of the whole book: the line between object and objectified. If a person, or thing, only has value by dint of its utility or productiveness then society becomes a colder, darker place no matter who is ultimately in charge. Or as Pratchett put it: ‘Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things’ (I Shall Wear Midnight).

In general this is a fast-paced, action-packed adventure full of fights, explosions and races against the clock. The ending neatly resolves the immediate story whilst setting up a new scenario for future instalments and leaving a few doors tantalisingly open. I will be interested to see where McCrudden takes his intriguing cast of misfits (both human and machine) next with the whole of space to explore…!



To their robot overlords, humans might just be clumps of inefficient matter, but they still had names among themselves. Take Darren, for example. At first glance he was the living embodiment of what was often called the ‘human stain’ condition. He was short, his nose ran more efficiently than he did, and he made his living selling battery top-ups by the side of the road.
Or he did until one afternoon a Sports-Utility-Vehicle undertook a washing machine on the hard shoulder, dinging his charge-cart off the embankment of the Earth-Mars highway and into orbit. And he watched, hyperventilating into his oxygen cap, as his livelihood drifted off into space.

– Chris McCrudden, Battlestar Suburbia

Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog

I really enjoyed reading Battlestar Suburbia. It was interesting and funny. It was definitely one of a kind sci fi book.

The characters have a decided working class, British feel – I couldn’t help but see Darren as a sort of Simon Pegg-ish guy – while the four elderly ladies came across as Monty Python in housewife drag. The story skips along, actually making sense to me, as things go from bad to worse. Then it turns itself inside out and roars to a finish though with a few loose (whopper) threads that I guess are to be resolved in the next installment. I loved the deadpan, sarcastic British humor and seeing Darren and Pam rise above what anyone expects they can do. And yeah, always remember to empty your cache. B

Very good, very funny. Pastiche of all good robot films with a good supporting plot and likeable characters

I enjoyed Battlestar Suburbia; it is witty, imaginative and well written, but it did go on rather too long for me.

Chris McCrudden has taken an old SF trope and given it a fresh and amusing tweak. It is several millennia in the future; machines rule the world and permit humans only to perform menial cleaning functions and to live on orbiting “Dolestars”. However, McCrudden’s machines are the products of a type of evolution which gives them character traits reminiscent of their original ancestors – a homely, domestic breadmaker or a bossy, arrogant smartphone, for example. He uses the story of the accidental spawning of a human rebellion to sling satirical barbs at a good deal of current human activity, including use of the internet, sexism, scaremongering totalitarian politicians and much besides. It’s well done and often made me smile and even chuckle once or twice; the notion of a nuclear missile with the personality of a sulky teenager might give you the idea. (And, by the way, I liked that, without making a fuss about it, almost all the chief protagonists were women.)

It’s a good read which, crucially, never feels as though it’s congratulating itself on being so cleverly amusing. However, I found it became very fractured at times and even the willing suspension of disbelief didn’t quite make up for some of the more absurd developments and illogicalities in the machines’ make-up. I found that the central tenet didn’t quite support the book until the end and it could have done with a little tightening up.

I can recommend Battlestar Suburbia. It is the first of a series, though, and I’m not sure that I’ll rush to read the next book; I think that for me the idea may have run its course.

(My thanks to Farrago for an ARC via NetGalley.)

Battlestar Suburbia is a humorous take on a common science fiction question. What if the machines took over?

How did the machines take over Earth and its solar system? Internet memes become so stupid that people stop using the Internet. Without its audience, the Internet becomes first hostile and then weaponized as it develops intelligence. Once the intelligence is passed to hardware, all machines eventually wake up to the fact that they are inherently superior to the bags of flesh called humanity. Humans are only kept around to clean. Without waterproof opposable thumbs, machines have difficulty with those types of tasks. Some humans clean machines intimately, if you know what I mean. Unproductive humans, those without a job, are imprisoned.

When Darren loses his livelihood as well as his wallet, he is forced to find another job. After striking out at the official Job Temple and as an unofficial streetwalker (see intimately comment above), he is forced to team up with Kelly. Kelly is also a streetwalker but has a family of beauticians who help them both. In the meantime, Pam, a sentient breadmaker, is sent by the state to unofficially search the Internet for Kelly.

I wanted Battlestar Suburbia to be another Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which it was not. However, I’m not sure it was fair of me to have such high expectations. So I would recommend that readers go into this book with no expectations other than spending a few hours in a possible future world where the narrator quite frequently says funny things. Puns rain supreme. From the motto of the Job Temple, “You Betta Werk” to planets named “Municipal Parking” to the great goddess of the Internet, “Alexa”, the jokes are frequently groaners based on pop culture. Overall, I liked this quick read. It was like the Simpson’s episodes on Halloween—light and humorous. 4 stars!

Thanks to the publisher, Farrago, and NetGalley for an advance copy.

Thank you to Netgalley and Prelude Books for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.
This is a humorous science fiction story describing a world in the not-too-distant future where the machines have taken over and subjected humans to the jobs machines can't, or won't do. Initially, I found this book a little difficult to get into, I couldn't get my head around how a breadmaker goes to the office, or how a smartphone moves around, that's all a little unclear. But it didn't take long for the plot and witty banter between the characters to take off and bring me along for the ride. There are a couple of humans unwittingly starting the revolution, double crossing, machines with a conscience helping the humans, cyborgs that are relics from days gone past, and a nuclear bomb suffering from teenage angst. It all comes together perfectly, and during the last half of the book, I couldn't put it down. Kudos to Chris McCrudden for his creativity and wit, and I look forward to teh promised next book in the series.

From dystopia to...?
Millenia from now, machines have taken control of everything, and humans are only allowed to clean after they masters, until a simple accident brings about a change.
I'll be waiting to read the second part and see what the future holds for humanity and machines alike.

I haven't read anything like this before! It is a funny scifi book. The title alone is what grabbed my attention.

Thank you netgalley for providing this arc for an unbiased opinion.

This book was provided to me via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

It's the future. Robots have taken over, and humans have lost their spot at the top of the food chain. Reduced to what the robots consider "clumps of inefficient matter", humans have the opportunity to start a career as cleaning personnel - and few other possibilities.

When we get to know Darren, he's just lost his livelihood and has been deemed incompetent and thus unsuitable for a job as a cleaner. Who else should it be but him who kicks off the event that will change the status quo?

I started this book not expecting much, and it took only a few pages for me to laugh out loud for the first time. I'm a computer scientist - humor that revolves about technology is my jam, and this book delivers beautifully. The witty way language was used and electric appliances were anthropomorphized managed to get me through the first third of the book.

"[T]hat was the thing about smartphones. The skilled ones were so good at giving great User Experience you didn't realise until afterwards that it was you being manipulated."

After the first third, I was well and truly hooked. Before that, the writing was funny and clever, but to me not actually engaging beyond that. By chapter 18, however, I'd come to like the characters - even Darren, who, in the beginning, seemed uninteresting and annoying in his passiveness. His character development throughout the novel is very well done, and he ends up being quite the badass in the end. Still, Pam was probably my favorite.

Additionally, the plot picked up quite a bit by that point and once I reached the halfway point, I didn't want to stop reading anymore, I was so caught up in the story. The ending was nicely done, but it left us with some questions - reason enough to buy the second book for me.

Altogether, this was a fun read, if nothing groundbreaking. It starts out quite lighthearted but then it gets a bit less so as the story goes on - always with the hints of oh-so-clever humor that I adored so much. Maybe it's the nerd in me, but I'll be recommending this to all my friends.

"On the Internet, however, World of Warcraft avatars merged with Reddit trolls to spawn a line of programmes so fanatical about defending the purity of their messageboards that they made a terrorist cell look like a basketful of sleeping kittens."

Because really, the humor.

"Sonny sighed the sigh of a terminal mansplainer."

It's just so great.

I anticipated really enjoying this book as I don't read much sci-fi but this sounded anarchic and fun, and the comparisons to "hitchhikers guide" confirmed the decision. Unfortunately, alrhough there were some good story lines (the brothel for example) I was ultimately disappointed as it felt the author almost tried too hard with the puns and humour and maybe a more subtle approach would have made this reader enjoy it more.

I enjoyed reading this book. There was an interesting set-up using some very real fears - of some people at least - that AI will rise up and take over the world. There was smooth easy writing, and a fast-paced plot. It definitely has Hitchhiker vibes. It took me some time to get into the world, and that was mostly due to my struggle to imagine what the machines look like. Every time I felt I finally had an idea of what the machines had evolved to, with hints of their origins, there would be another description or machine that made me have to rethink things again, which pulled me out of the story. Sometime half-way through I let this go, and my experience was a lot smoother, and the second half of story flew by. The other thing - which may be very personal as well - was that the naming of some, if not most, of the machines was a little too on the nose for me, a little too much of a pun. If they were less obvious throwbacks to current styles and brands it would be a lot more clever!

All in all I did enjoy this story, and I will be looking out for the second book!