Galactic Center Saga
Still have to read these.
The Galactic Center Saga is a series of books by author Gregory Benford detailing a galactic war between mechanical and biological life.
Personal notes
Found about it in a post on scifi stackexchange post (OP asked to identify a book they’ve read in the early 1990s). The synopsis, as described by OP, made me interested in the whole series.
Read this sometime in late 1980s / early 1990s. Survivors of a human vs. robots war are trekking across a barren landscape. They stop at an underground cavern, one of a network established by the human resistance. Only to discover that the food stores have been poisoned by the robots.
To be clear, this isn’t The Terminator albeit it clearly shares many similarities.
Here is the accepted answer:
I think this could be Great Sky River by Gregory Benford.
This is the 3rd novel in the authors Galactic Center Saga and was originally published in 1987, which fits nicely into the OP’s timeframe in the question.
Great Sky River is set some 30k+ years into a future where humanity has spread towards the Galactic Center, but met a mechanoid civilisation and subsequently lost a lot of technology as the mech’s tried to wipe humanity out.
After the events of Across the Sea of Suns, small groups of humans have settled on other star systems. However, there is a constant threat from the Mechs, a civilization of machines left over from other civilizations and evolved to see all biological civilization as unstable and dangerous.
List
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In the Ocean of Night (1977) — 1977 Nebula Award nominee, 1978 Locus Award nominee
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Across the Sea of Suns (1984)
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Great Sky River (1987) — 1988 Nebula Nominee
After the events of Across the Sea of Suns, small groups of humans have settled on other star systems. However, there is a constant threat from the Mechs, a civilization of machines left over from other civilizations and evolved to see all biological civilization as unstable and dangerous.
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Tides of Light (1989) — 1990 Locus Award nominee
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Furious Gulf (1994)
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Sailing Bright Eternity (1996)
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“A Hunger for the Infinite” a novella published in the anthology Far Horizons