CBR15 Books 43-44: "A Psalm for the Wild-Built" and "A Prayer for the Crown-Shy" by Becky Chambers

Total page count: 320 pages

Rating, both stories: 4.5 stars

CBR15 Bingo: On the Road

On a moon (that seems quite like Earth in many respects) called Panga, people live peacefully together in harmonious small communities. There are remnants of a previous industrial age, and it's suggested that there was a near apocalypse way back when, but humanity improved and started thinking about what was better for their environment, possibly helped by the exodus of their robots. At some point, in the distant past, many generations ago, the robots that had been working in the factories and enabled humans to industrialise most everything, gained sentience and asked the humans for their freedom. This seems to have been managed without any major conflict - no Terminator-style rise of the machines on Panga. When offered an equal place in society as the humans themselves had, the robots instead chose to leave society entirely and go off into the untouched wilderness to observe it in all its glory.

Hence no one has seen any robots for a very, very long time, until one of our protagonists, Sibling Dex (they/them), a restless monk, encounters the other of our protagonists, the robot Mosscap, during his possibly inadvisable trek through the wilderness. Sibling Dex, initially a monk working in a monastic society in the city started yearning for the sound of crickets, something they certainly would never experience living and working where they were. So they retrained and became a tea monk, an individual who travels around to all the far-flung human settlements in a little wagon supplied with teas and tisanes and on their stops along the way offer up tea and a little oasis of calm to anyone who feels like joining them. Sibling Dex works diligently to make their various blends and brews and after some false starts, becomes a sympathetic and caring listener to those who wish to unburden themselves while enjoying a cup of tea in their presence. 

After some time of travelling to the various small communities, Sibling Dex is forced to acknowledge that not even becoming a tea monk has managed to soothe the unease inside them, and they still haven't been able to find any crickets to listen to. So they somewhat rashly decide to leave settled human society and venture into the wilderness in search of a rumoured ruined monastery, where there may still be crickets. Sibling Dex is rather taken aback at encountering Mosscap (full name Splendid Speckled Mosscap - the robots take their name from the first thing they see when they first wake up). Mosscap, on the other hand, is delighted to meet Sibling Dex. Being wild-built, a robot created by some of the descendants of the first robots to achieve sentience, Mosscap has proposed to venture into the human world to find out how humanity is now doing and discover what they need. Sibling Dex tries to explain that this is a very large task, which might even be impossible, considering how many different humans there are and how many dreams and wishes exist among them. 

After some back and forth, Mosscap decides to accompany Sibling Dex through the wilderness in search of crickets, while Sibling Dex agrees to be the robot's guide to humanity. On their continuing journey, they have many lovely and meaningful conversations and begin to become unlikely friends.

In A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Sibling Dex and Mosscap's friendship and mutual understanding deepen, as Sibling Dex takes Mosscap around to villages and cities on Panga, so Mosscap can try to answer their question of what humans want. Among the places they visit is Sibling Dex's own home, and large and boisterous family. 

These lovely novellas, which came to be during the deeply depressing years of the Covid pandemic are relatively short (I wish I'd gotten to spend more time with Sibling Dex and Mosscap) and very gentle, philosophical reads. They are apparently classified as solarpunk - an optimistic vision of a more sustainable future, where there are close connections between nature and community. This certainly seems to fit the bill here. Everything seems carefully crafted, sustainable, and solar-powered, and people live with an awareness of and respect for nature, making sure not to make too serious a footprint while building their settlements. Considering the world we currently live in, it's a wonderful fantasy.

Chambers is a talented writer, whose characterisation and world-building in the previous novels I've read, are all excellent. These novellas are no different and like the people who sit by Sibling Dex's tea wagon for a spell, unburdening themselves about various troubles and receiving kind-hearted advice in return, these books felt like a balm for my soul, containing a lot of philosophy and musings on what makes us happy, what makes for a satisfying life and so forth, but also just cozy, low-peril plots that nevertheless entertained. Chambers has been nominated for a lot of awards for these stories and won the Hugo Award for Best Novella 2022 for A Psalm for the Wild-Built and the Locus Award for Best Novella 2022 for A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. 

I don't know if there are more novellas planned about Sibling Dex and Mosscap, since these seem to have come out in 2021 and 2022, and there has been nothing since. Checking her blog, it seems as if she's on hiatus from writing for an undisclosed period of time because of bereavement, so it may be a while before we see anything at all from her, not just about Monk and Robot. 

Judging the books by their covers: I don't really have much to say, except that these covers are so very lovely and give tiny hints of what the books contain. I especially like the windy roads on the cover of A Psalm for the Wild-Built and the lovely combination of colours on A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. There's something about the images that just feels soothing. They make me feel calmer and happier just looking at them. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR12 Books 34-37: "The Murderbot Diaries" by Martha Wells

Total page count: 650 pages
Total rating for the series: 4.5 stars

#CBR12Bingo: Gateway (this would work as an excellent gateway into sci-fi fiction)

All Systems Red - 4.5 stars
I have reviewed this first novella before, back in 2018, and my original post can be found here. I decided to re-read this first Murderbot story and then read the following three novellas in preparation of the full novel about everyone's favourite misanthropic sec unit, being released in May 2020. By now, when I've finally gotten around to writing my review, the book has of course been out for several months, and I have yet to find the time to read it (June REALLY wasn't a particularly good month for me, reading-wise).

Murderbot, of course, wishes that everyone would just leave it alone to enjoy all its downloaded entertainment, but instead, the humans they're supposed to protect keep getting into scrapes and it has to do its job as a Sec Unit. Once we went into lockdown, I would have happily just self-isolated at home and binge-watched Netflix and HBO, but instead I had to take care of and entertain a rapidly developing two-year-old, and remote teach up to ninety teenagers a week (15 of which I also had to call at least once a week to make sure they were doing OK), while my own mental health steadily deteriorated. Honestly, Murderbot is way better at performing its duties in a high-pressure environment than I have been for the last few months.

It was nice to revisit the beginning and get re-familiarised with the crew that got Murderbot to start feeling all those inconvenient feelings and emotions.

Artificial Condition - 4.5 stars
Murderbot doesn't want to become anyone's "pet" Sec Unit, instead, it goes off on its own, trying to figure out what actually happened in the mining disaster where it killed a number of humans and actually became Murderbot. Discovering the truth of the past will also help Dr Mensah, the kind human who technically now owns Murderbot, as further evidence against the big corporation that may or may not have tried to kill Dr Mensah, Murderbot and their entire crew can only come in handy.

Murderbot makes a new friend, who is even smarter than it is, a Research Vessel going by ART. After a slightly tense and antagonistic start to their relationship, Murderbot and ART bond over their love for space soaps.

Along the way on its new mission, Murderbot also encounters some new humans that it starts feeling protective of. It's all very inconvenient.

Of course, Murderbot's further adventures are just as entertaining, if not better, than the first novella. I really liked ART, and the friendship that developed between it and Murderbot. I also really like how Martha Wells manages to include slower, more introspective passages with tense and fast-paced action scenes, as well as more chances for Murderbot to develop and become more of its own individual.

Rogue Protocol - 4.5 stars
Murderbot continues in its quest to gather evidence against the evil GreyCris corporation and ends up on another mission, protecting hapless humans who don't know to take proper care of themselves. Murderbot needs to find an identity of its own because it's certainly no longer a proper SecUnit, but it's also not a human, nor does it want to become one. In this story, Murderbot meets a group of people travelling with a bot, who they treat with kindness and respect, a bit like a pet (the very fate Murderbot wishes to avoid). Yet Miki the bot, who is all that is optimistic and naive, so pretty much the diametrical opposite of Murderbot, comes to teach Murderbot some important lessons.

While Miki was an interesting character to introduce, I missed Murderbot's snarky friendship with ART in this one. It's also clear that the story is moving towards reuniting Murderbot with its first crew, and I kind of just wished the story would get to that place. Of the four novellas, this was my least favourite. By all means, very good, but it felt more of a bridging story than the others.

Exit Strategy - 5 stars
Murderbot still fights the notion that it has emotions or feelings, but it's pretty much the only thing that can explain why Murderbot decides to expose itself to danger when its actions in the previous story now means that GreyCris, the corrupt corporation that previously tried to kill Dr Mensah and her crew (while Murderbot was hired to protect them) in fact means has been able to take Dr Mensah hostage. Murderbot still doesn't want to be anyone's pet android, but Dr Mensah and her crew always treated Murderbot with respect and sometimes even kindness, and it cannot stand by and let GreyCris win.

Murderbot has to reunite with its old crew, convince them that it wants to help, then they have to find Mensah and rescue her, with everyone hopefully making it back to Preservation in one piece. Of course, Murderbot doubts it will be joining the others, it seems like GreyCris are pretty determined to take it down, once and for all.

As a lot of long-time readers of my reviews know, I don't tend to read a lot of sci-fi. I'm reading more of it since I started going to my local nerd bookstore's monthly book club since we alternate a fantasy and a sci-fi book every other month. Yet the Murderbot novellas are sci-fi that I thoroughly enjoy, probably because it's very heavily character-driven (even if our protagonist is not a human) and there is a very good balance of exciting action scenes and quieter introspective scenes where Murderbot has to interact with others and further develop as an individual. I'm very glad that Martha Wells has written a full-length novel about Murderbot now, and that there seems to be another coming out in 2021. I adore Murderbot's snary, misanthropic but secretly emotional self. I will happily keep reading whatever Ms. Wells chooses to publish.

Judging the books by their covers: All the novellas in the Murderbot series have very elegantly designed covers with a thoroughly science fiction feel. I don't think you'd doubt for a second what genre of book this was, with any of them.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 51: "All Systems Red" by Martha Wells

Page count: 144 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

From Goodreads:
In a corporate-dominated spacefaring future, planetary missions must be approved and supplied by the Company. Exploratory teams are accompanied by Company-supplied security androids, for their own safety.

But in a society where contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, safety isn't a primary concern.

On a distant planet, a team of scientists are conducting surface tests, shadowed by their Company-supplied 'droid - a self-aware SecUnit that has hacked its own governor module, and refers to itself (though never out loud) as "Murderbot". Scornful of humans, all it really wants is to be left alone long enough to figure out who it is. 

But when a neighboring mission goes dark, it's up to the scientists and Murderbot to get to the truth. 

Recently, I read Binti by Nnedi Okorafor, which won the 2016 Nebula award for best novella. I was rather underwhelmed by that story. All Systems Red just won the Nebula for best novella for 2018, and I thought that was a much more deserving winner - and a much more engaging and well-written story besides.

I think a lot of introverted and nerdy readers on the internet can identify with Murderbot, who has hacked its own governor module and spends all of its downtime (and any other spare moments it can get away with it) consuming the countless hours of entertainment media it has sneakily downloaded. As it points out in the very first lines of the novella, it could have become a mass murdering killing machine after hacking its governor module, but with all that media to consume, who has the time? Murderbot finds social interaction deeply awkward and absolutely hates small talk and especially talking about feelings of any kind, which makes the fact that several of the scientists keep trying to engage it in conversation and treating it as an important member of the crew, not just a mindless droid (it's not mindless, of course, but it also would rather be left alone). Muderbot loves its armour and hates having to be without it, which becomes a bit of an issue as the story goes on - its duty is to protect the scientists and unexpectedly, what was supposed to be a pretty routine research mission turns out to be really rather dangerous.

The first instalment of The Murderbot Diaries is an excellent example of why I keep trying science fiction, a genre that is more often than not miss than hit for me. It's not that I hate all sci-fi stories, it's just that the ones that I really like and that manage to really engage me emotionally are few and far between. Since Murderbot clearly is some sort of spiritual cousin to Marvin the Paranoid Android (I first read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in my early teens) and also has many of the same anxious reactions to socialising as I frequently do, not to mention wants nothing but to be left alone and consume mindless entertainment, I (like so many other readers) couldn't help but love it.

The second novella in this series is out now, but I'm not allowing myself to read it until I'm fully and completely caught up on my backlog. Happily, while it's taking a while, I am slowly but surely churning out reviews and should be able to read about Murderbot's next adventure soon.

Judging a book by its cover: This cover shows Murderbot, in its armour that it finds so comforting, front and centre. The background is suitably ominous, considering the contents of the story. I like that the art is done in such a way that this almost looks like black and white, except it's not.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR6 Book 101: "The Silver Metal Lover" by Tanith Lee

Page count: 291 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Jane lives a pampered and privileged life, the only child of a wealthy and influential woman. She's lonely, insecure and immature. She has no real friends, just people who mainly seem to take pleasure in bullying her. One day, she encounters a robot minstrel, one in a new line of highly realistic, artificially intelligent androids and her life is never the same. Though she is initially frightened by the robot, she's also fascinated by him and can't put him out of her mind.

She runs away from home, giving up everything just to be with Silver, as she names her robot lover. She learns to fend for herself and makes a life on her own. She refuses any contact with her mother or former "friends" and begins to discover a wholly different, much happier existence. Yet the factory who first created Silver wants all the advanced robots destroyed and they are searching for Jane and Silver. How long until their happy romance comes to an end?

The Silver Metal Lover was written in 1981 and for as long as I've been reading young adult fiction with any sort of romantic element, this book has been on my radar. It appears on countless lists of romantic YA and has clearly meant a great deal to a lot of readers over the years. Yet the book never seemed to interest me all that much, probably because science fiction is not a genre I read all that much and robots are a lot less appealing to me than vampires, werewolves, faeries and witches. When this was the alt book in Vagina Fantasy book club in August, and the book also fit with my Monthly Key Word AND Monthly Motif reading challenges, I decided to check it out. I suspect that it would have made a much greater impact on me if I read it when I was actually a teen in the mid-90s than it did now.

First of all, Jane really is somewhat of an exhausting protagonist. She cries ALL the damn time. She cries so much she even points out that it's amazing she doesn't dehydrate herself from all of it. She's lived a sheltered and not very exciting life, so it's not actually surprising that she has the personality of a wet sponge, I just really didn't like her much at all. Even when she developed the backbone to run away to be with her robot lover, I didn't like her all that much. The best thing she had going for her was that every single character in the book, with the exception of Silver was so much worse than her.

Silver was pretty cool actually. I prefer my robots more of the Terminator variety, frankly, but as sentient robots go, he wasn't bad. I'm sure he could have done better than Jane though. Their romance didn't really work for me, as I found Jane dull as dish-water. The book had an interesting concept, but there are just so many better YA sci-fi romances out there now, and while it was a perfectly ok book, it didn't wow me in any way. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.