Bolo Rising by William H. Keith Jr.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The Bolo series of novels, first created by Keith Laumer and subsequently written by several prominent SF authors, has long been one of my favourite SF worlds. This novel, Bolo Rising, is an excellent example of why I like them so much. On the surface, it is just another alien invasion story, easily dismissed as just another story of ray guns and daring heroes. But it goes much deeper than that, and I think represents very well the classic form of Science Fiction, based on interesting concepts, wide ranging plot, and human beings dealing with a very futuristic world.

Spoiler Alert! - While I won't be going over the entire book in detail, many important elements in it can't be discussed without a certain amount of "spoiling", so here's your chance to stop reading.



Still here? Great. Let's go.


First, most central and almost unique to the Bolo series is the treatment and depiction of Artificial Intelligence. It seems that almost every new SF story or film featuring AI is the tired old trope of machines gaining self awareness and immediately turning on their human creators. Even Asimov's classic Caves of Steel deals with how AI can go wrong or move in unexpected directions, not always beneficial to humans. But not so the Bolos. Originally the result of attempts by military researchers to create robotic tanks, something that the major powers are already working on today, they succeeded, but in an unexpected way. In programming their AI powered tank with as much military tactics and history as possible, they unwittingly created an AI that had also absorbed all the best of the military ethos. The desire to protect the helpless, a limitless need to defend and serve their creators, and the willingness to suffer destruction in the performance of their duties. In other words, they had created artificial warriors who embodied the concept of Honour. For those interested in reading about the birth of the Bolo, I suggest the short story "Honor Of The Regiment". Bolos were never treated as perfect in the books and stories, and could go rogue if severely damaged, or left unmaintained for long (very long) periods, just like any machine, or human being, for that matter. For that reason, each Bolo was partnered with a human commander. I say partnered and not "operated" because the human/Bolo team was truly that. A team that fights and often dies together, because Bolos are not indestructible or invulnerable.

The next feature of the book are the alien invaders. Like Battlestar Galactica (the original series) the invaders are a machine based civilisation. But these invaders are truly alien. They have no concept of biological life, or have somehow forgotten it in the distant past. As you would expect with a machine culture, they prize integration and utility. As such, the biological machines that are the humans are a puzzle to them. Logically, every independently operating system must have a purpose, a use, and after invading the human colonised planet, they set about investigating these strange biological machines to determine their intended use, with truly horrific results, as might easily be imagined. In the mean time, the surviving humans are put to work scavenging the destroyed cities and countryside for scraps of usable materials and technology. The true horror of the situation is that the machine based aliens are not evil or even hostile. They simply are unable to understand things like emotion, exhaustion, fear, pain, or death.

On the human side of the story, at the start it is a tale of raw survival under the most savage and terrible slavery imaginable. The most callous and ruthless human slave owner understands the basic needs and weaknesses of their slaves and take these into account, if only to preserve valuable assets. But not so with the invaders, who are not deliberately cruel, but simply uncomprehending. Many of the survivors choose suicide or simply give up and die.

Even worse, their most powerful and reliable defender, the Mark XXXEH Bolo named Hector, has been suborned, "hacked" and made to serve the alien's purposes by implanting the equivalent of a trojan or virus into the Bolo's systems. Hector's unfamiliar AI and operating systems have not been destroyed, but instead are constantly "reset" whenever the Bolo attempts self diagnosis and repair, and is given false data and instructions. Ironically, since the aliens have yet to totally take control of Hector, it is set up as a watchdog over the captive humans, destroying any who try to escape or approach too close to the massive war machine. Unsurprisingly, many of the captives use the Bolo as a convenient and relatively painless method of suicide.

Once such person is Major Jaime Graham, a Bolo commander. Driven to despair, he decided to end his suffering by approaching the Bolo and crossing the fatal boundary. But almost by accident he discovers that Hector still responds to some very basic voice commands unrelated to combat operations. Since the alien slave overseers and biological salvage units don't approach Hector either, the Bolo becomes Major Graham's safe space, a place to rest and temporarily hide from the ceaseless demands to work.

And this is where the plot begins. If Major Graham can somehow enter and repair the Bolo's AI, he can stage a revolt that might free the humans or at least deal truly significant damage to the invaders before he and Hector are destroyed. Thus begins a guerilla war featuring a single fighter the size of a multi storey building, and those few humans (male and female) who still retain the spirit to fight.

The book is an anthem to the human spirit and to the hope of Artificial Intelligences that may someday be our partners and even our friends, and their fight against the very opposite of the Bolo, the "evil" and hostile machine intelligence that so many predict is in our future. This is SF in the classic style, not a disguised soap opera or a thinly veiled vehicle to promote a political or social agenda.



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