I listened to this relatively short novella on a long plane flight. I have liked previous books by Chambers and had seen this one around so I thought I would give it a try. This is the first in a series of ‘Monk and Robot’ stories.
In a far future, humans live on a distant planet, and have reverted to simpler lives after their robots gained sentience and the two races parted ways. Our main character is a tea monk, who travels in their cart (electric assist bike powered RV is what I pictured) in a circuit of villages. They then sit and listens to other’s problems. They grow weary of this life (not unexpected, as the first scene of the book is the character Dex leaving the monastery where they had lived to become a tea monk) and seek to find answers in an old abandoned religious or sacred site. While traveling, they meet a robot, Splendid Speckled Mosscap, who has been chosen by the robots to “check in” on the humans and see how they are doing after a few hundred years.
This was a calm, quiet book. It didn’t have a lot of exciting action, and most of the book consists of the two characters conversing on their journey to the abandoned monastery. I found it delightful to listen to, but not engaging enough to really capture my interest, and I probably won’t rush to read other books in the series. Chambers’ prose is beautiful, though, with great imagery and I really felt like I was present in the story.
Although this is science fiction, for sure, it definitely feels like a fantasy or at least a fantastical series of events. Thus the genre I choose here is fantasy and not space opera.
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