Hollywood, take note! Over at Signal Horizon, Tracy Palmer identifies the future media superstars in this year’s crop of summer SF blockbusters. At the top of the list is the debut novel from Black Gate‘s own Todd McAulty, The Robots of Gotham, the story of a future on the verge of complete subjugation by machines.

I was lucky enough to get an advance copy and I’m reading this right now. This is the political Terminator we have been waiting for. Its brainy look at technology surpassing the inventor is tailor made for the big screen. With a very clear enemy and hero it will delight the action enthusiasts as much as those looking for more astute moral ambiguity. With many films preceding it like the aforementioned Terminator franchise and Robocop the audience is primed for another robots gone wild movie. What makes this unique is the timeline and mystery. Who or what are the machines hiding and where have the Americans been all this time? Stan Winston Studio who did the incredible robots for Terminator 3 should be hired immediately!

The Robots of Gotham will be published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on June 19. Get more details here.

The complete list includes The Rig by Roger Levy, Semiosis by Sue Burke, and novels by Neal Stephenson and Pierce Brown. Read the whole thing here.