A Psalm for the Wild-Built

sweet, beautiful, simple and short. this story came to me on the heels of a hard year, which itself was following a couple more hard years. sibling dex and mosscap were precisely the guides i needed to recenter at the end of this year and think about how to bring a little bit of tea monk energy into the next chapters of my life. i'll be rereading this one.

This novella felt like a warm embrace. It's cozy, cute and light. A traveling tea monk exploring the world coming in contact with a conscious robot. Robots were long forgotten by humanity, having fled to the wilderness to live their own lives. I loved the discussions about life purpose and consciousness. It made me want to continue reading the next one.

It's easy to find dystopian science fiction. It's harder to find science fiction that provides a positive image of the future. It's not a blueprint, but you get the sense of a robust society that has overcome its most self-destructive tendencies. Very on-brand (in a good way!) for the author; if you've enjoyed her other books you will enjoy this one as well.

Becky Chamber's works are rare among science fiction stories because instead of action-adventure plots they're about people talking about what it means to be alive.

The first couple of chapters felt like the plot was jumping around a hell of a lot, because they're really just backstory/preamble for the actual story

It's good that there will be a sequel because I do want to know what both Mosscap and Dex will do next

A gorgeous poke at a plausible, palpable, provocative world. Also: a timely addition to the "sad-happy speculative fiction" corpus.