Publicist Matt Staggs has announced a book trailer creation contest. He writes “The robots are coming! And they won’t stop until each and every one of us are crushed under their steely treads. We at Doubleday plan to welcome our shiny metal overlords, and to do it right, we’ll need a video trailer as electrifying as they are. We need your help—and we’re willing to pay handsomely for it. Create and submit a video inspired by Daniel H. Wilson’s new novel Robopocalypse by 13 May and you could win one of three cash prizes:
Grand Prize: $750
First Prize: $500
Second Prize: $250
Staggs warns potential winners to “Enjoy it now! Money won’t be worth much when they come.”
Videos must be either 30 or 60 seconds long, must feature the book shot of Robopocalypse somewhere in it, and must be in one of five formats: MOV, MP4, WMV, FLV, or AVI.
Full details, including an excerpt of the book and uploading instructions, are on this Facebook page.
Staggs offers this summary of the book:
“In the near future, at a moment no one will notice, all the dazzling technology that runs our world will unite and turn against us. Taking on the persona of a shy human boy, a childlike but massively powerful artificial intelligence known as Archos comes online and assumes control over the global network of machines that regulate everything from transportation to utilities, defense, and communication. In the months leading up to this, sporadic glitches are noticed by a handful of unconnected humans—a single mother disconcerted by her daughter’s menacing ‘smart’ toys, a lonely Japanese bachelor who is victimized by his domestic robot companion, an isolated US soldier who witnesses a ‘pacification unit’ go haywire—but most are unaware of the growing rebellion until it is too late.
“When the Robot War ignites—at a moment known later as Zero Hour—humankind will be both decimated and, possibly, for the first time in history, united. Robopocalypse is a brilliantly conceived action-filled epic, a terrifying story with heart-stopping implications for the real technology all around us… and an entertaining and engaging thriller unlike anything else written in years.”
The book is scheduled to be released by Doubleday on 7 June 2011.
Related articles previously published on SFScope:
Roboticist Daniel H. Wilson sells Robopocalypse to Doubleday and DreamWorks (10 November 2009)