Published Date: July 13, 2021
Genre: Sci-Fi, Novella
Rating: ★★★★☆
Literary Awards:
REVIEW
This book has been on my list for quite a while. Now that it's nominated for the 2022 Hugo award, I knew I had to read it. This is the third book by Becky Chambers that I've read and the third 4 star read. I really enjoyed the first in the Wayfarers series, A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, as well as her novella To Be Taught if Fortunate. She has a knack for long titles and I really like it. I definitely plan on finishing the Wayfarers series as well as read the second novella in this series.
SYNOPSIS
"Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.
Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story 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 will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?"
MY THOUGHTS
I knew I had to read this as soon as I read that synopsis. Self award robots that purposefully separated themselves from humans? No one has seen them in a long time and one comes back seeking the answer to what seems like a simple question, but what turns out to be complicated and somewhat unanswerable. Like the other two I've read from Chambers, her sci-fi really explores humanity in a fascinating way. She has characters that aren't human, yet understand humans and ask questions that make me think. The question in, well, question, is "what do people need".
I liked both the characters in this novella a lot. The concept of a tea monk that makes teas specifically for what each person needs is a really fascinating idea. I really enjoyed the beginning of this because it sets the character up well. We quickly learn that Dex, a nonbinary tea monk, helps people by making herbal teas. They are going through the motions and needing a purpose, hit with what felt like a mid-life crisis when you don't know why you're doing what you're doing, and yearning for something more. Mosscap, a robot seeking to learn what humans need comes across Dex.
I've heard Chambers writing described over and over again as "cozy sci-fi". I think that is a perfect descriptor for her stories. They aren't overly action driven which is a welcome reprieve from a lot of popular sci-fi. Instead, they focus mostly on the characters and their lives. This novella is, dare I say it, very philosophical.
I have always disliked philosophy. I find it pretentious at worst and boring at best. This is the main reason that I put off reading this for so long. I enjoyed her previous two works so much I didn't want this to taint my enjoyment. However philosophical this was though, it never once felt pretentious to me. I think it was because I was seeing it through the lens of Dex and Mosscap, and not someone trying to shove ideas down my throat. They seemed so earnest that when various questions were posed throughout the novella, they made me think and try to answer them myself. These two characters seemed so innocent in their exploration of humanity.
This quote in particularly struck me:
"'Do you not find consciousness alone to be the most exhilarating thing? Here we are, in this incomprehensibly large universe, on this one tiny moon around this one incidental planet, and in all the time this entire scenario has existed, every component has been recycled over and over and over again into infinitely incredible configurations, and sometimes, those configurations are special enough to be able to see the world around them. You and I—we’re just atoms that arranged themselves the right way, and we can understand that about ourselves. Is that not amazing?'"
This is actually something I think often about. Humans often think of themselves as the most important, the smartest species, the rulers. But Earth is just one planet in this infinite universe. Why would we be the only planet with intelligent life? Why are humans superior at all? I love how this novella made me think. I believe good science fiction can not only entertain, but can reflect and make me think about different ideas. I am definitely going to be reading the second novella and I really hope it is just as good.
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