Dot Robot Atomic Swarm

Dot Robot

by Jason Bradbury

Twelve year-old Jackson Farley is a digital genius. On a robotics scholarship at a high-tech American university, he's having the time of his life - but then an explosion at the nuclear reactor on campus changes everything. Jackson and his fellow gamers are highly suspicious - the attack bears the hallmark of maniacal dot.com billionaire Devlin Lear and his rogue robots. And it appears to be part of a terrifying multimillion-dollar master plan. But Jackson can't believe Lear is behind the sinister dealings. Devlin Lear is dead. Isn't he?

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2009

Reviews

[Andy Toms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aimed at Children/teenagers this is a great read, i have read it (and all the other books in the series) for myself and enjoyed them so much i shared them with my son, reading a few pages each per evening, thus encouraging him to read while spening quality time together, one thing that is interesting about the book, which i didnt know untill i had read them all is that all of the technology within the books actually exists and Jason Bradbury has seen it all

[Michael Melilli · Rating 2 out of 5]

The best thing I can say about Atomic Swarm is that it wasn't quite as bad as the first book in the series.

To start with, the dialogue is hugely improved...it's still not good, not by a long shot, but the American characters don't speak in catchphrases 100% of the time like the last book (only 15% of the time). Maybe that should be the tagline for this book, "Now with 85% less annoying dialogue!"

The plot is still terrible, though not as ridiculous as stealing a river, so again another improvement. I won't tell you what the bad guy is up to, in case any of you have some terrible sins to flagellate yourselves for and want to read this book to fulfill that duty...however, I will say that the villain's plot is still stupid. Again, not stealing a river stupid but still pretty dumb.

The major plot "twist" in this book is so annoyingly cliched that you'll seriously consider not reading the last few chapters that follow...I'd consider a season of Jersey Shore as a viable alternative. I mean seriously people, if George Lucas has done it then it's dead...time to find a new "shocking" twist.

Ok, that's all the time I'm willing to devote to this book...one more to book in the series to go before I'm free of this insipid YA train wreck...at least the next book promises Yakuza and gold farmers and lethal martial arts...oh my!

[James Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read and a good follow up to the first book. It didn't seem to have as much action as dot.robot, but I did enjoy it. Fairly short and easy read.