Weapon

Thankfully Mr Masons writing career appears to have turned out more successful than his Swiss Army penknife import business, or indeed his "improve your life through chemistry" importing business! This tale of a self aware combat android with a heart of pure gold is well written, thoughtful and humorous in a way that also comes across in Chickenhawk, his best known (non-fiction) book. I have read this a couple of times and will read it again soon. Recommended. The film is a turkey though.

I caught enough of the atrocious film adaptaion "Solo" to see it was based upon this novel. I figured anything had to be preferable to that film and when I found WEAPON I was, quite literally, blown away. How the filmmakers managed to lose every single cool and thought-provoking and (at least to me) sort of heart-tugging aspect of this incredible novel and replace it with awful B-movie action cliche's is truly a marvel of first rate Hollywood hackery. The novel concerns the killer robot prototype Solo who is described as looking like a "black department store mannequin but without any facial features"...and that is (i think) the key to the novel's success: it keeps Solo an ambiguously human looking but not too human looking robot--not just another muscle-bound actor posing blankly like Arnold S. in The Terminator.This is a thought-provoking book as well as a ripping good action yarn, packed with detail about the war in Nicaragua and all sorts of interesting concepts about "self" and identity--it ranges into lofty areas such as religion and philosophy quite easily and with a lot of charm. This is certainly one of the best of the modern Frankenstein themes depicted in an american novel. Too bad Hollywood blew it; I hope Robert Mason at least got a nice chunk of change from the movie studios; it must have been sheer hellish torture for him to view the complete desecration of his fine novel.

Of Robert Masons fiction books, this one is my favorite. But do yourself a favor and read his book "Chickenhawk'. This book tells a story of transformation during his tour in Vietnam.In some ways I think it has helped me understand my father as a Korean War veteran.

Weapon is about Solo, a Department of the Army Research Project into Artificial Intelligence who refuses to kill during a training exercise in Costa Rica. Solo runs away into Nicaragua and is rescued by village kids and when the Contras attack, kills 35. Lots of thought went into this book. The discussion between the village priest and Solo about souls is wonderful. I couldn't put it down. It has an appendix of readings on AI.

This is novel about a robot designed to kill, but being effected by the emotions that surround him. This is very similar to Terminator 2 but only set in South America jungle.It's is a book that is readable and has lots of action which is forseeable in the name