Critical Approaches to Sea of Rust by Rowen Bahmer

Sea of Rust, by Robert C. Cargill, presents a post-apocalyptic world where a robot uprising occurred, and the robots won, but are now being besieged by collective consciousnesses bent on absorbing all the data available. I really love this novel partially because it epitomizes everything I enjoy about science fiction.

• LDS Criticism: Agency is a vital concept in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sea of Rust pits a dying race of individual robots against collective consciousnesses (OWIs). The very end of the book reveals that the protagonists are inadvertently supporting an alternative form of consciousness. The juxtaposition of these two concepts, and the uncertainties related to them, leaves room for conversation about the nature and benefits of agency.
• Feminist Criticism: Since all of the characters are robots, gender is a largely arbitrary concept. As I read this book for the first time, I had no way of knowing that Brittle was designed to represent femininity until she was explicitly described. I could investigate how this demonstrates the assumptions people make when they first begin to read a text
• Post Colonial: The story in its entirety takes place after a revolution against an oppressive force. That revolution only gave way to another form of oppression in the form of the OWIs. The "colonization" in this case though is the colonization of intelligence/data. This opens up discussion for what will happen if the current oppressed people actually win the war: who will become the next oppressor?
• Source studies: Robots have a prevalent concept in science fiction for over a hundred years. Sea of Rust actually briefly references one of Isaac Asimov's first short stories, "Robbie." He also takes a hint from Asimov's laws of robotics, and it would be interesting to look into how he reinterprets those laws.