Goodreads asked A. Jordan Booth:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

A. Jordan Booth My next, Nova of the Machines, started with a basic question. What would the robots in The Terminator, Battlestar Galactica, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and The Matrix and many many other do if they finally succeeded in wiping out the humans? Its a pretty overused sci-fi trope that robots gain intelligence and immediately try to destroy their creators. The fundamental question that sci fi dealing with artificial intelligence asks is: “What does it mean to be human?” The idea was finally catalyzed by the Futurama film “Beast with a Billion Backs”. In the movie the humans (and all biological aliens) leave Earth to the robots. Without them the machines are listless and directionless. They were lonely.

Though it was played as silly comedy, Beast with a Billion Backs inspired me. I decided to take my Sci-Fi epic in a different direction. Instead machines wiping out humanity, they were left behind. They would be much more innocent than a race of Terminators or Cylons. Their incomplete nature would have to compare to the flawed nature of the humans they would encounter. How might humanity’s children evolve?

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