Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot by Walter Koenig…

Amazon paperback/Kindle

Whoever he is, he seems to control a remarkable technology. ~Chekov, Who Mourns For Adonais?, Star Trek

I’ve mentioned before that I try to write my own summaries, but for Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot, I think it is best stated in it’s original description.

From a distant world the invaders came. They were a race not unlike mankind but technologically advanced enough to impose their genocidal interests on Earth. In their wake nearly all of the human population is disintegrated, blanketing the surface of the planet in white dust. This holocaust is the ultimate waste of life, as the aliens discover the new world they have conquered and colonized is incompatible with their biology.

Now scattered survivors, both human and alien, trudge through this post-apocalyptic wasteland: a power-hungry science fiction writer, a brilliant scientist losing his battle with schizophrenia, a man convinced he’s the robot he portrayed on television in pre-invasion times, a recalcitrant hero who has proclaimed himself the son of God, a former boxer tortured by his past and the tribe of misfits who follow him, and a young girl chosen to bear the children of a new civilization in the last known settlement of humanity. Some are aimless, others purposeful, but all cling to survival and their own sanity, unaware their fates are intertwined.

When Earth’s champions gather, is there hope for a better world? No, definitely not.

I have to admit that I felt like I had eaten some psychedelic mushrooms before and I was reading this book. Now don’t read that just yet as a bad thing Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot  was just…well, trippy. Koenig has put a new twist on the survivors of the apocalypse. There are no GI Joes running around trying to save the world. The world as the characters in the story knew it is gone and who is left? The social outcasts, those who are typically shunned in society…for lack of a better term, the oddballs. The characters are unique and believable in their imperfections. They make mistakes, they are believable and they are all attempting to find their own purpose in this new world.

Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot is deep, it is philosophical. It makes you think. It is also silly and quite entertaining. It jumps around a lot, which can make it difficult to follow. Overall, I enjoyed Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot  and I would probably go back and reread it in the future to see if I can get a clearer idea of some of the deeper meanings that I am sure are hidden within the pages of Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot. 

Espresso rating: Double