Back to books index
- ISBN: 1-894692-14-4
- $19.95
- Illustrated Novel/Science Fiction
- 124pp
- 2005
A rallying cry against consumerism, Maggie MacDonald’s punk novel Kill the Robot beautifully articulates the insecurity of post-human Western culture.
Moore White, a curious girl in anytown, North America, hides library books about Chernobyl under her shirt, desperate to learn all she can about the nuclear threat. But she knows this is an interest she has to keep secret. Growing into a thrift-store-fashion teenager she finds solace in punk rock and ‘zine culture.
MacDonald documents Moore’s developing alienation from her body in a totalitarian world of computerized check points and cyber paranoia. Moore realizes things around her are growing strange: in the looming shadow of Esoft, the world-dominant tech corporation, everything hums and sickness abounds. There is something wrong with her organs. She can feel herself turning off. Her old friends from the anarchist scene are disappearing and her boyfriend is strangely indifferent. The only thing constant is the glow of the Tee-Vee. As she finishes university and needs to make her life take a direction, Moore slams up against police terrorism and her worldview gels in a dramatic direction.
Scattered through the narrative, Maggie MacDonald’s illustrations are haunting and powerful. In Kill the Robot, punk rock meets a high-tech The Handmaid’s Tale as a new generation inherits the world.
"Maggie MacDonald's writing totally blows me away."
-Kathleen Hanna