Drowned Steel
Cameron Coral
332 pages
Dystopic Bliss Press
Published Sept 2, 2025
🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
This is the third book in the Robots & Ruins post-apocalyptic sci-fi series about a quietly heroic CleanerBot called Block and his adopted human daughter Wally, now a teenager. This series is a continuation of the Rusted Wasteland chronicles, but you don’t need to have read those to enjoy this one which is a standalone adventure. These books should appeal to both older kids and adults who enjoy light sci-fi.
Block and Wally have left their peaceful Minnesota settlement of Deer Valley to visit their friends Oxford and Cybel at Cascade Haven on the Pacific Coast, in the hope that Wally’s newly discovered abilities will help them understand a mysterious signal emanating from the ocean that is driving robots to throw themselves into the salt water that is deadly to their circuits. They arrive to find that the mistrustful mayor of the human village nearby is planning an attack that he hopes will drive the robots away. With time running out and tempers fraying, can Block and his friends save everyone?
I really enjoyed this instalment which had it all – intrigue, action, suspense, politics and even a little romance. We get reacquainted with characters from the earlier books, like Cybel the TrackerBot turned protector, as well as meeting new ones, human robot, and canine! You know with this author you’re going to get feelgood moments and a happy ending, hope, humour and pathos. The relationships between the characters continue to evolve and I look forward to finding out what happens next.
Thanks to Cameron for the ARC. Drowned Steel is available now.
Leave a Reply