Code Lightfall and the Robot King

Daniel H. Wilson (author)

Bloomsbury, USA: Australian release May 2011; 170pp

ISBN: 9781408814192

Genres: adventure, science fiction

Issues: bullying, differences, friendship

Code Lightfall is an ordinary kid with an unusual name – a name that apparently has some special family significance. From Code's point of view it just gives his peers another reason to bully him. Since his grandfather's disappearance Code has felt very much alone and misunderstood in a fairly mundane world. But then he goes on a school excursion and falls down a hole into a different world: a world where everything and everyone is robotic.

Suddenly Code finds that his simple humanity makes him extraordinary – and perhaps the only being who can save the robots, their world (and possibly his own) from the deranged Robot King, who bears a startling resemblance to his lost grandfather. Can Code and his fragile human body survive the bizarre robotic world with its poisonous rivers, killer lawnmowers, infectious nanotechnology and mechanical seas?

Very much a 'boys' own adventure' style of narrative with a slightly manic edge, Code Lightfall and the Robot King is obviously the first in a series. Action-packed and sprinkled with quirky inventions and eccentric characters, Wilson has clearly had a great deal of fun inventing the world of the robots, an enjoyment that carries the reader along with Code as he explores the astonishing, mechanical world that he discovers.

Entertaining light reading although very young readers may find some of the more sinister robots rather nightmarish in their determination to complete their programming.