Automatic Noodle

Annalee Newitz

★★★★★

When I read that Annalee Newitz’ next book was going to involve a group of robots opening up their own noodle shop in a future post-war San Francisco, I knew I had to read it. And it does not disappoint! It’s a short, joyful tale of creating the future you want out of the present you’ve been stuck with.

The main robots are all well-drawn, individual characters: The octopus-like search-and-rescue bot whose chemical sensors were perfect for analyzing taste and smell, who has fond memories of the falafel truck they worked at after the war (and is seriously into speculating cryptocurrency on the side). The bot with articulated arms and hands, who wants to make something worthwhile with them. The former bank teller, partly humaniform, who becomes more comfortable expressing her inner robot-ness as she explores logistics and supply chains. And the former combat robot, who finds himself tired of working in management and wants to get back into protecting people (both human and robot) and the restaurant, and discovers there are more ways to do that than just muscle (or rather servos) and ammo. The sentient car doing delivery gigs who has a thing for old media and will tell you exactly what’s wrong with the offensive robot stereotypes in, say, Transformers.

Great flavor, real substance to chew on. Portions sized to satisfy hunger, even if you’d cheerfully go for a second helping.

Retro Web

I love the concept that robots would be fascinated with early web design…and that the book’s official website was built using the aesthetic!

Last time I visited, I hadn’t noticed the merch. You can buy several varieties of “torso cover” (including the “formal torso cover” and a "cold weather torso cover with bonus head cover), a tote bag “perfect for takeout boxes, replacement limbs, and more,” or a hat that “goes mainly on human heads, but will also go hansdomely on many robot appendages. We’re not the bucket hat police. You do you.”

I may pick up one of those stickers, though I don’t know any sentient cars to give one to…

Reality Intrudes

The idea of an embattled California trying to provide civil rights for people (while still exploiting their tenuous legal status), while the rest of the US wants to treat them as objects, hits a bit harder than it would have last summer, but it’s not like we didn’t all see it coming.

I wasn’t expecting this to fit in with the cluster of oddly-related books I read this summer, but it opens with the robots waking up some time after a disaster has struck, and they have to both get themselves back online and figure out what happened…a lot like the opening chapters of The Downloaded, which I’d just read a couple of weeks earlier.