After the Machines. Episode Two: Transition
About this audiobook
"This one's memorable and fascinating heroine is someone you're going to love as much as Katniss Everdeen." - Sandra Brown, author
"A gripping tale. Perfectly paced and brilliantly plotted." - Cathy Thompson, author
"Stanek's written many good, even great, books. This one's exceptional. Read it!" - Shannon Hale, author
"Builds and builds to a crescendo. Part Stephen King, part Suzanne Collins, part Max Brooks, 100% phenomenal!" - David Eastman, author
"Wonderful action writing. Fast, fun, and smart." - Margaret Brown, author
"I can see why Rothfuss doesn't want people to read Stanek. Stanek's a much more capable writer." - Emily Asimov, author
"What an amazing book! Unique and innovative, captivating to the end." - Mary Osborne, author
"Anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games, World War Z, or The Maze Runner is going to enjoy this book." - Lisa Gardner, author
Episode #2. Where were you when the machine apocalypse began?
In the ruins of our world, a new order arose, an order controlled by the very machines humankind created. The end for us came not from a massive global war but from something unthinkable, incomprehensible. The machines simply replaced us and we let them, and so, in the end, humanity went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. No shots fired. No bombs dropped. No cities destroyed. We ended and the machines began—or at least that is what the few human survivors of the machine apocalypse believe.
After the Machines
Episode One: Awakening
Episode Two: Transition
Episode Three: Descent
Episode Four: Precipice
###
To the machines, we became nothing—except maybe outsiders, if they considered us at all. Outsiders looking in on their reality, for the machines weren’t bothered by our existence, or at least, if they were, they weren’t bothered enough to bother us. They certainly didn’t seem to require anything of us or have any need of us at all—if they had needed us, they probably would have enslaved us. But they hadn’t. Enslaved us that is.
The machines hadn’t done anything to us really. Except take over the world—and it was their world now. It certainly wasn’t ours.
We were outsiders, strangers really. We looked in on their world. They didn’t acknowledge us. They probably didn’t even consider us a part of their world. Just as we didn’t consider the small things that crawled beneath our feet as part of our world.
Matthew told us it wasn’t the machines who killed us. Matthew being the only one here now who remembered when we drove the automobiles, flew on the airplanes, and rode on cars behind the locomotives. He said most of us just died. Us being the human race.
I didn’t believe that. I believed we died of neglect. The neglect of the machines. The machines who cared not enough to kill or enslave us.
Luke would have called it benign neglect. Luke being the one who taught me to read and write my letters and words. He knew all the fancy words. He taught me everything really. He remembered—I didn’t. Don’t, really. These words—his really as much as my own.
But Luke was gone. Is gone really, if you don’t mind me slipping into the present. Luke said it’s wrong to slip from past to present or present to past, but I do. The present is—and Luke isn’t. The past was—and sometimes I can see it.
###
After the Machines is a story unlike any other you’ve ever read. It’s the story of us, the humans who struggle to survive in a world we no longer control.
About the author
Robert Stanek has been a writer for over 30 years and is the author of many bestsellers. Books by Robert Stanek have been read by millions. His most popular series include the Ruin Mist books, the Magic Lands books, the Bugville books, the Bugville Jr. books, and the Bugville Learning books which area all available via Amazon, Audible, Playaway, OverDrive, and more than two dozen other retail and library partners.
Though Robert Stanek's always been a writer at heart, he never set out to be a writer. What he wanted to be, he didn't know when he said goodbye to high school. What he wanted to do though, he knew that: he wanted to see the world--and so he did while serving his country in distant lands.
Robert Stanek wrote novels for more than ten years before he ever tried to get published. His big break came with a book about publishing--only a different sort of publishing than you may be thinking. The book was about web publishing and so his career in writing began. His books have been written about and recommended by the YA librarian staff at VOYA, Publisher's Weekly, Parenting Magazine, the Journal of Electronic Defense, The Children's Bookshelf, Children's Writer, the Wall Street Journal, Popular Series Fiction for Middle School and Teen Readers: A Reading and Selection Guide, and other fine publications and periodicals.
In his long, distinguished career, books by Robert Stanek have been distributed and published by Simon & Schuster, Random House, Macmillan, Pearson, Microsoft, O'Reilly, and others. He was also a columnist for PC Magazine and Dr. Dobbs. After high school, Robert Stanek joined the military to see the world and has lived in Asia, Europe, the Pacific, and many parts of the United States. He served two combat tours in the Gulf War as a combat flyer. Learn more at www.robert-stanek.com, www.ruinmistmovie.com, and www.bugvillecritters.com. Or visit www.williamrstanek.com.
From his earliest days as a writer to the present, Robert Stanek has been lending a helping hand to other writers. Over the years, he's helped many, many writers get their books and professional papers published. In 2007, he founded Go Indie, an organization dedicated to promoting independent publishers, authors, and booksellers, and over the past few years Go Indie has helped hundreds of indie authors. In March 2012, he launched Summer of Indie and dozens of indie authors joined the kickoff party that April. Beginning in June and continuing throughout the summer, Summer of Indie featured indie authors and their books. Nearly 100 indie authors were featured in all, along with their many, many books. Learn more at readindies.blogspot.com.
Like the little engine that could, books by Robert Stanek are the little books that could. Year after year. Interest from movie production companies has come and gone. New editions and new books have been introduced. A graphic novel and comics were released. Robert Stanek works now and again on a script that may some day be the first Ruin Mist movie (or it may not). "Who knows for sure what the future may bring," he says.
Robert Stanek thought 2002 was a banner year when print sales soared beyond his wildest expectations and he was living with a smile on his face. He thought that year would never be topped, never be achieved again. Until he brought Ruin Mist to audio in 2005 and the books catapulted to #1 on Audible for FOURTEEN consecutive weeks and then stayed on the Kids & YA Top 10 for the next THREE YEARS (out of over 15,000 titles in what are now separate Kids and Teens categories).
