After the Machines. Episode Two: Transition

Robert Stanek

Nov 2014 · After the Machines. This Mortal Coil. - A.I. is Dangerous Book 2 · Big Blue Sky Press

About this ebook

"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

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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.

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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.

Ratings and reviews

The writing is quite good, but I'd rather have the story in a single volume than in a bunch of separate parts. I'll wait to read the rest until I can just make a single purchase.

Well written but would have liked to read it all in one go. Books are too short.

Its not a book , its a short story

About the author

Robert Stanek is a dad, husband and author. Robert Stanek finished his first novel in 1986 and has been writing several books a year ever since. Today, he has over 150 published books, which have been read by millions of people around the world. Robert Stanek's books have received many awards for excellence and outstanding contributions to the writing community. Dubbed 'A Face Behind the Future' in the 1990's by The Olympian, he's been helping to shape the future of the written word for nearly two decades. In his fiction writing, Robert Stanek transports readers to imagined worlds, including stories that take place in Ruin Mist and a BIG little place called Bugville. When Robert Stanek brought Ruin Mist to audio in 2005, 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.