Book Review: The Inevitable by Daniel Hope

The Inevitable

Author: Daniel Hope

396 pages

published July 3, 2013

Buy on Amazon and Smashwords

My rating: 7/10 lightsabers

Blurb from Goodreads

Tuck is on his last legs, literally. He is the last functioning bot in the galaxy, a broken machine that used to look like a man. Now he wanders between planets, searching for spare parts that can keep him running for a few more years. But he's out of parts, and he's nearly out of time.

He's a valuable relic of a bygone era when bots were a luxury on Earth, back before they were hunted down and destroyed. More and more collectors want Tuck, damaged or not, as the centerpiece of their collections. They'll do anything to get him, but Tuck will do anything to stay free and functional.

The truth is, Tuck is afraid to die.

He was originally programmed to value human life, even if they don't value his, but he can't ignore his own need to survive, at any cost. That's why Tuck is haunted by memories of the sixteen people he has killed over the last 150 years.

After a particularly dangerous run-in with a collector, Tuck meets a mysterious man dressed in white who offers a solution. In exchange for some help in a less-than-legal business venture, he'll give Tuck what he really wants: immortality. It's a bad idea, and Tuck knows it, but he can't ignore it.

Even if it means killing again.

When we first meet Tuck he is a mess. He is wandering across the universe looking for parts to put himself back together. He's the last bot in the universe and his only mission is to survive. Tuck meets a suspicious man named Gerad who promises to give Tuck what he wants in exchange for his help. Let's just say Gerad doesn't have Tuck's best interest in mind. Tuck meets some interesting characters during his journey. Maze is a woman who seems to have the strength and intelligence of a bot, but is human. Then you have Lim who is a scared soldier on Gerad's ship and is in love with Maze. I can't forget to mention the delusional robotics doctor who thinks he is a spy. I wanted to punch him in the face. My favorite character is David. He is the AI on Tuck's ship. He is much younger than Tuck and doesn't know how to interact with humans very well. This leads to some funny dialogue.

After 150 years, Tuck acts and feels like a human. This leaves him with the same fears that humans have. Tuck's main fear is death. This is the main subject of the book. We get to see Tuck's struggle with accepting the inevitable just as we all struggle with it.

I enjoyed quite a lot about this book. I love Tuck and his internal struggles. Most of his thoughts and worries about death mirrored my own. I thought the supporting characters were done very well. I thoroughly enjoyed it when Tuck would go into his memory and show the reader important parts of his past. These memories are very important to the story. They allow you to see Tuck as a new bot fresh out of the box, meet David for the first time, see his first kill, and more. Each memory seems to be more tragic than the last. I also enjoyed seeing Maze grow. In the beginning, she is very cold and willing to kill someone without thinking twice about it. She changes after befriending Tuck and Lim. The ending is bittersweet. I won't say more than that to avoid spoiling anything. Now that I think about it, the entire book is bittersweet.

Daniel Hope writes dialogue very well. In my notes I kept writing how well the dialogue flowed. The only time my interest faded was during the action sequences. For some reason, those scenes just didn't work for me. Other than that, I don't have any real complaints. I will warn you that your heart will break a few times throughout the book. So, if you enjoy science fiction with some philosophy(which I believe the best scifi will always have) and don't mind a bit of heartbreak then I suggest reading The Inevitable.