Harare Review of Books

160 pages.

First published in 2021.

Finished reading on 14 Jul 2021.

Genre: Speculative Fiction.

Blurb: Hugo Award-winner Becky Chambers’s delightful new series gives us hope for the future.

It’s been centuries since the robots of Earth 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’ new series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

I really wanted to love this book. Instead, I found it fairly light and not very memorable. I did like it, because it’s partly about a rather unusual robot. It also has a lot of angst in it (the monk’s), and that got a little disconcerting, given how light the rest of the book was.

I would hold off reading this, and wait for the next book to come out, and the reviews for that. I think it lays the foundation for an interesting story; but one may as well wait for the series to really get going. Life is short.

Rated: 5/10.