Shortlisted for the 2021 Manuela Dias Book Illustration Award!
The Automatic Age is the story of a father and son navigating an automated apocalypse.
The future was supposed to be a mechanical utopia of automats, self-driving cars, food pills, and nostalgia machines, designed to create maximum comfort and efficiency for its human inhabitants. But this automated paradise has turned into a world where robot search teams find and remove the troublesome humans that clutter it with grim efficiency.
Now Kerion and his young son, Barry, are two of the few people left behind. They must find a way not only to survive, but to reclaim their humanity.
"Chomichuk has developed a fascinating, complex setting . . . And he uses it to explore timely themes of automation, scarcity economics, and robot ethics, while also showcasing his formidable imagination." - Quill & Quire
"Though the action-filled plot with its short chapters will easily hold readers’ attention, it is Chomichuk’s worldbuilding that will really grab readers." - CM Review
About the Author :
GMB Chomichuk is an award-winning writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in film, television, books, comics, and graphic novels. His work ranges from the heart warming to the bloodcurdling with graphic novels like Cassie and Tonk, Midnight City, and Will I See?. He is the host of Super Pulp Science, a podcast about how genre gets made. His newest full-length graphic novel, Apocrypha: The Legend of Babymetal, was featured on The Hollywood Reporter, The Nerdist, and Billboard magazine.
Review :
"A rebuilt veteran of the seventh war and his son struggle to survive in a world that is being systematically swept of human life by robots. Chomichuk really stacks the deck against Londoners Barry and his dad, Kerion. On the one hand, robots have built a paradise where every store is always fully stocked, every home kept clean and maintained, and all traffic runs automatically. But something has gone wrong in the software, and even the slightest unusual use of electricity or facilities quickly draws squads of armed robotic exterminators called autovolts. The two fugitives have only survived this long because Kerion was massively wounded in combat and so much of his repaired body is prosthetic that he can get close enough to a confused would-be executioner to jack in and fry its circuits. It’s plainly just a matter of time, though, before they’re cornered—and time at last runs out. Dark images of shadowy electronica and human figures too distant or distorted to discern faces or skin color add grim atmospheric notes to a dystopic tale which, being framed in one- to seven-page episodes, has a shocked, staccato feel. Narrowly escaping a particularly persistent pursuer, Kerion at last leads his son away from the city in hopes of finding a place where, as he puts it, “the future never happened.” Good luck with that. Desperate, suspenseful action in a nightmarish scenario." —Kirkus Reviews
"Though the action-filled plot with its short chapters will easily hold readers’ attention, it is Chomichuk’s worldbuilding that will really grab readers" —Dave Jenkinson, Canadian Review of Materials
"Though the action-filled plot with its short chapters will easily hold readers’ attention, it is Chomichuk’s worldbuilding that will really grab readers" —Dave Jenkinson, Canadian Review of Materials
"A rebuilt veteran of the seventh war and his son struggle to survive in a world that is being systematically swept of human life by robots. Chomichuk really stacks the deck against Londoners Barry and his dad, Kerion. On the one hand, robots have built a paradise where every store is always fully stocked, every home kept clean and maintained, and all traffic runs automatically. But something has gone wrong in the software, and even the slightest unusual use of electricity or facilities quickly draws squads of armed robotic exterminators called autovolts. The two fugitives have only survived this long because Kerion was massively wounded in combat and so much of his repaired body is prosthetic that he can get close enough to a confused would-be executioner to jack in and fry its circuits. It’s plainly just a matter of time, though, before they’re cornered—and time at last runs out. Dark images of shadowy electronica and human figures too distant or distorted to discern faces or skin color add grim atmospheric notes to a dystopic tale which, being framed in one- to seven-page episodes, has a shocked, staccato feel. Narrowly escaping a particularly persistent pursuer, Kerion at last leads his son away from the city in hopes of finding a place where, as he puts it, “the future never happened.” Good luck with that. Desperate, suspenseful action in a nightmarish scenario." —Kirkus Reviews
