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Not Quite Human #6
Killer Robot
Harbor City is forced to evacuate to the local high school when a hurricane threatens, but the school is taken over by a destructive robot and only Chip Carson, an android, can stop it
- GenresMiddle Grade
Paperback
First published September 1, 1986
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 17, 2010
What a shame a series that started on a strong note had to end on a relatively poor one.
From the start, Not Quite Human had a fun premise. A scientist builds an android designed to look exactly like a 13 year old boy, and sends him to middle school. Such a premise has a lot of fun potential, and a lot of that potential is used well. Chip has difficulty understanding many of the things said to him or asked of him, interacts with his classmates in odd ways, and is quickly thought to be eccentric. We're told why Chip does many of the things he does, in terms of his programming. e.g. Chip's normal greeting "Hi, my name is Chip" is what he says when not asked a direct question, at least until his creator fixes that little problem by giving him a wider variety of responses. We see how awkwardly Chip interacts with his peers, and how he tries to make it through the day, seeing things through the perspective of the machine that he really is.
But each story also has little mini-disasters that happen to Chip, such as part of his programming not working right, or something accidentally burning through his plastic skin and revealing the wires underneath, forcing him to find a way to hide them until the damage is repaired (as he was programmed to hide his identity as an android). And each story also has some major mystery to solve or some other major conflict. Like, who is stealing things and trying to frame Chip, or who is hacking Chip and making him do odd(er than usual) things. While the main theme of Chip making it through middle school as a misunderstood robot is always there, these plots give more direction to each story, creating a conflict Chip and his "family" - his creator and the creator's daughter - have to solve.
Well, while the first 4 books were really fun, I found the last 2 quite disappointing. It seems as if the author was running out of ideas of what to do with Chip for these last few stories, as both this and the 5th book take place almost entirely in one location (5th book - the room in the school where rehearsals are held for a play, and in this book, the local high school during a hurricane). Also, both this and the previous book entirely revolve around one major threat. In this case, during a hurricane, with everyone taking shelter in the local high school, a killer robot is running loose. Someone hacked into a robot built by some robotics company and is running loose.
It could be an interesting idea, though the entire story takes place exclusively inside the school, so we don't get the everyday tidbits of "life of a robot who goes to school and poses as a human kid" that the first 5 stories had so much of. It's entirely suspense/action.
What's more, while this series has always been cheesy, yet in an enjoyable way, there's stuff here that really stretches disbelief. In particular, a part where kids in the school - ones from Chip's classes - are afraid of what they think is a ghost. I'm talking kids who are 12 and 13. Then later use the fear others have of the "ghost" as part of a plan to help Chip. What??
Chip also acts more human-like than ever before, in some ways that just don't seem to flow with his behavior in the previous books. The previous books were very consistent, and every mistake Chip made in his speech or behavior, made perfect (and sometimes hilarious) sense. Here, a lot of that comedy is gone, and Chip's programming seems to have improved a bit too much from even the 5th book to be believable at some points.
There's a lot of problems for Chip to resolve dealing with his android abilities and limitations - he finds himself low on power more than once, and has to find something to plug himself into (with no-one watching or noticing) to recharge his internal batteries. And he also finds his memory full and has to dump it (under the implausible as always reasoning that if his memory is not dumped, all of it will be wiped. What kind of programming is that?). The number of mini-disasters increases quite a bit for this book.
But the main thing involves trying to figure out what's going on with the defense robot, stop it, and prove - once again - that Chip is innocent of everything he's accused of. If the story had more to it than just that, I might like it like I did the first 4. But sadly, the series' creative energy just dropped during the last 2 books. I guess the author just didn't have it in him anymore. Darn.
From the start, Not Quite Human had a fun premise. A scientist builds an android designed to look exactly like a 13 year old boy, and sends him to middle school. Such a premise has a lot of fun potential, and a lot of that potential is used well. Chip has difficulty understanding many of the things said to him or asked of him, interacts with his classmates in odd ways, and is quickly thought to be eccentric. We're told why Chip does many of the things he does, in terms of his programming. e.g. Chip's normal greeting "Hi, my name is Chip" is what he says when not asked a direct question, at least until his creator fixes that little problem by giving him a wider variety of responses. We see how awkwardly Chip interacts with his peers, and how he tries to make it through the day, seeing things through the perspective of the machine that he really is.
But each story also has little mini-disasters that happen to Chip, such as part of his programming not working right, or something accidentally burning through his plastic skin and revealing the wires underneath, forcing him to find a way to hide them until the damage is repaired (as he was programmed to hide his identity as an android). And each story also has some major mystery to solve or some other major conflict. Like, who is stealing things and trying to frame Chip, or who is hacking Chip and making him do odd(er than usual) things. While the main theme of Chip making it through middle school as a misunderstood robot is always there, these plots give more direction to each story, creating a conflict Chip and his "family" - his creator and the creator's daughter - have to solve.
Well, while the first 4 books were really fun, I found the last 2 quite disappointing. It seems as if the author was running out of ideas of what to do with Chip for these last few stories, as both this and the 5th book take place almost entirely in one location (5th book - the room in the school where rehearsals are held for a play, and in this book, the local high school during a hurricane). Also, both this and the previous book entirely revolve around one major threat. In this case, during a hurricane, with everyone taking shelter in the local high school, a killer robot is running loose. Someone hacked into a robot built by some robotics company and is running loose.
It could be an interesting idea, though the entire story takes place exclusively inside the school, so we don't get the everyday tidbits of "life of a robot who goes to school and poses as a human kid" that the first 5 stories had so much of. It's entirely suspense/action.
What's more, while this series has always been cheesy, yet in an enjoyable way, there's stuff here that really stretches disbelief. In particular, a part where kids in the school - ones from Chip's classes - are afraid of what they think is a ghost. I'm talking kids who are 12 and 13. Then later use the fear others have of the "ghost" as part of a plan to help Chip. What??
Chip also acts more human-like than ever before, in some ways that just don't seem to flow with his behavior in the previous books. The previous books were very consistent, and every mistake Chip made in his speech or behavior, made perfect (and sometimes hilarious) sense. Here, a lot of that comedy is gone, and Chip's programming seems to have improved a bit too much from even the 5th book to be believable at some points.
There's a lot of problems for Chip to resolve dealing with his android abilities and limitations - he finds himself low on power more than once, and has to find something to plug himself into (with no-one watching or noticing) to recharge his internal batteries. And he also finds his memory full and has to dump it (under the implausible as always reasoning that if his memory is not dumped, all of it will be wiped. What kind of programming is that?). The number of mini-disasters increases quite a bit for this book.
But the main thing involves trying to figure out what's going on with the defense robot, stop it, and prove - once again - that Chip is innocent of everything he's accused of. If the story had more to it than just that, I might like it like I did the first 4. But sadly, the series' creative energy just dropped during the last 2 books. I guess the author just didn't have it in him anymore. Darn.
September 17, 2013
These are not good by any means of modern standards, but I will still give them 5 stars because of their significance to me when reading them for the first time. It was a book about a family that loved each other so much they were willing to fight, tooth and nail, to protect the secret of their robot son/ brother. I didn't have much of that at home, and McEvoy gave it to me.
December 15, 2013
Been awhile since reading the early books in the 'Not Quite Human' series, but I don't remember them being this bad. Maybe, being the last book in the series, he'd run out of plots? Have to reread the others to see if I'm remembering wrong...
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews