A novella is often the perfect length for a story which really digs into a single, fairly self-contained idea, and that’s exactly what Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built (her first Monk and Robot book) does. It’s the tale of Sibling Dex, a tea monk with a tendency for crises of purpose, who finds themself gradually coming to terms with their own thoughts and needs in the most unlikely of company. On an impromptu journey into the wilderness, Dex is stunned to come across Mosscap, a robot in search of answers to the question of what humans need. In the generations since robots suddenly and unexpectedly achieved consciousness and subsequently left mankind’s cities in favour of the wilderness, no human has even seen a robot, never mind talked to one…until now. And suffice to say, Dex does not feel overly prepared for the experience.
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