Review of 'A Psalm for the Wild-Built' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Simply lovely and delightful. It’s somehow as if Wendell Berry started writing sci-fi short stories. I will be coming back to this one for sure.
Hardcover, 160 pages
Published July 13, 2021 by Tordotcom.
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.
Becky Chambers's new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?
Simply lovely and delightful. It’s somehow as if Wendell Berry started writing sci-fi short stories. I will be coming back to this one for sure.
An interesting, character driven story that starts with a monk that is dissatisfied with the way their (singular they) life is and goes on a voyage of exploration as a tea monk, serving various kinds of teas they has selected to people who just need to unwind.
But even this proves not to be enough to quell the unease in the monk, and they go on a journey to visit an abandoned place in what would be the wild part of the moon the monk inhabits. On the journey, they would encounter the first sentient robot (the robots left for the wild woods after gaining sentience) to be seen by man for many years, who is also on a journey to find out what people need.
In their journey together, they would converse on the nature of man and robot, their desires and curiosity about each other and the world …
An interesting, character driven story that starts with a monk that is dissatisfied with the way their (singular they) life is and goes on a voyage of exploration as a tea monk, serving various kinds of teas they has selected to people who just need to unwind.
But even this proves not to be enough to quell the unease in the monk, and they go on a journey to visit an abandoned place in what would be the wild part of the moon the monk inhabits. On the journey, they would encounter the first sentient robot (the robots left for the wild woods after gaining sentience) to be seen by man for many years, who is also on a journey to find out what people need.
In their journey together, they would converse on the nature of man and robot, their desires and curiosity about each other and the world around them. By the end, the monk may, perhaps, have found what they want. But their journey to find out what other people want may be just beginning.
Not much is actually revealed about the world they inhabit (how it came about, etc.), but a quiet, gentle book about a person and a robot with differing points of view discussing the nature of how people might live and see the nature of their world.
An interesting change from the usual plot and science driven SF that I usually read.
I loved the setting of this book. This is a world where monks travel on bicycles pulling wagons behind them. They come into towns and set up small tea stations. They serve the exact tea blend that a person needs to help with their emotional needs. The service is a mix of therapy and just having a quiet space to sit and think for an hour. It is very peaceful.
Sibling Dex has worked hard to become the best tea monk. However, it isn’t satisfying them in the way that they thought it would. They want to take a side trip out into the wilds to an abandoned monastery they heard about. On the way, they meet a representative sent from the robots. Robots gained autonomy generations ago. They left human areas and haven’t been heard from since. Now one has been sent to see what is going on with …
I loved the setting of this book. This is a world where monks travel on bicycles pulling wagons behind them. They come into towns and set up small tea stations. They serve the exact tea blend that a person needs to help with their emotional needs. The service is a mix of therapy and just having a quiet space to sit and think for an hour. It is very peaceful.
Sibling Dex has worked hard to become the best tea monk. However, it isn’t satisfying them in the way that they thought it would. They want to take a side trip out into the wilds to an abandoned monastery they heard about. On the way, they meet a representative sent from the robots. Robots gained autonomy generations ago. They left human areas and haven’t been heard from since. Now one has been sent to see what is going on with humans since they left.
This is like an alien first contact story. Neither the robot or the human has ever met a representative the other other type. They don’t quite know what to do with themselves.
This book is quiet. There isn’t a huge amount of plot. They travel together for a while. They don’t even meet other humans yet. There is a second book in the series that should cover what happens when Mosscap the robot meets other humans.
Read this one if you want to quiet, small story that is a slice of life on a planet that was once industrialized and has changed its ways.
A gorgeous poke at a plausible, palpable, provocative world. Also: a timely addition to the "sad-happy speculative fiction" corpus.
Read this in Teixcalaan recovery mode and loved it. I think I was supposed to find it optimistic and cozy etc etc and I did. But I also found deep sorrows hiding in its slant looks at how we live now. So: it's about stopping to rest but it's also about getting the purpose to do better.
A short work delivered with wit, insight, and a hopeful vision of the future. Sibling Dex and Mosscap are characters that bounce off each other wonderfully, as the book peddles along at an easy clip.
If ever a work felt like a breath of fresh air, this is it.
There isn’t much I can add to loppear@bookwyrm.social’s review; once again, Chambers is simply wonderful. Here, she is running with the wholesome if slightly insipid promise for the future Solarpunk holds to explore human condition and (not entirely incidentally, I suspect) thumb a very long nose at the whole “machine uprising” crowd. I don’t know how someone can be so relentlessly, melancholically upbeat, but I do know I had to finish this before work, and that I had a little happy cry when I did.
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https://www.ebooks.com/en-ca/book/210110608/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built/becky-chambers/
.https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250236210
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250236210
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250236210
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250236210
.https://www.litalist.com/book/9781250236210
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://bookshop.org/a/102303/9781250236210
.https://audiobookstore.com/audiobooks/a-psalm-for-the-wild-built.aspx
.https://bookshop.org/a/102303/9781250236210
.