Best Novella - A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers
Publisher – Tordotcom
Published – Out Now
Price – £16:99 hardback £7.44 Kindle eBook
It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.
One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot.
SF loves revolutions robots. The chance to explore what life made by human design alone can achieve. Throw in laws, revolutions, and cute sidekicks they are an inherent part of SF’s language and background. In Becky Chamber’s excellent A Psalm for the Wild-Built robots return to the world after a long absence, but this story is less the study of massive changes made to this of the world and the question instead of what is it to be alive?
Dex is a monk in a post-apocalyptic world where people live their lives in peace and harmony. They have had enough of their city-based life and decided to become a tea monk helping people find peace in their lives and move forward. After four years they’re at the top of their game and yet that’s not enough now either. They have decided to now go on a solo trip to a remote monastery for reasons they cannot articulate. Entry into the wild untouched new nature is a strange experience and then on top of that they meet Mosscap the first robot to have met humanity for many years and they have questions about humanity and answers about robots that surprise them both.
This novella for me is like a fable but one set in the future. Its theme is expectations we place on others and ourselves. It challenges the idea that we must have our own programming and certain purpose. That the mystery of what life is and what we do in it is not always going to be clear and that’s ok. Dex is finding out that the Robots of this novel that began in factories serving us have evolved in different ways to what SF usually expects. Logic and interfacing as a giant network is not how they choose to live. Being unplugged from the great social network they could have is prized highly. The world building and character work is slight but subtle. Dex appears annoying and selfish but they’re overcompensating for their inner turmoil, and they are sadly the kind of person who would try to fix a problem themselves but never ask anyone else for pride’s sake. I quite like a story that make s you think a character is doing this for one reason and then you realise their main motivation is something else
This is a brisk and smart novella that uses our view of robotic order as a way to examine how humanity itself tends to want to treat itself as a machine. Its calming, relaxing yet thoughtful and exactly the kind of story I prize in new SF. Really rather joyous.
