eBook, 384 pages
English language
Published June 6, 2024 by Tor Books.
Meet Charles™, the latest in robot butler technology. Programmed to undertake the most menial household chores, Charles is loyal, efficient and logical to a fault. That is, until a rather large fault causes him to murder his owner.
Understandably perplexed, Charles finds himself without a master – therefore worthless in a society reliant on artificial labour and services. Fleeing the household, he enters a world he never knew existed. Human hierarchy is disintegrating, and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to its wellbeing is struggling to find a purpose.
Charles must face new challenges, illogical tasks and a cast of irrational characters. He’s about to discover that sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming. But can he help fix the world, or is it too badly broken?
The somewhat satirical tale of Uncharles, a robot programmed as valet traveling across a collapsing, nearly post-human society, after the death of its master.
Very reminiscent of a lot of 50s and early 60s sci-fi, in that it uses bits of the apocalypse setting to satirize modern scoeity. It's pleasant, but somewhat unchallenging. Good as a lighter read.
Truly a perfect fun-house mirror to our future, present, and recent past. A thoughtful, precise, inspiring knife to the gut which Tchaikovsky twists with unparalleled empathy and insight.
A story of a robot who does not fully understand his own actions, and does not consciously believe in his own agency. A series of trials like Old Mebbeth's tasks each point a glowing and uncomfortable finger at one of the ways our society is utterly failing. Pinocchio on a modern odyssey of apocalyptic parables silently screaming at the top of their lungs to do something about what's wrong. Truly more Literature in here than I can shake a stick at. Sublime, beautiful, and painful to the core.
Unquestionably going to come back to this several times, hopefully with a book club where we can study one section in depth before moving to the next. An absolute banger.
This book reads to me as satirical Gulliver's Travels style book with a task-following robotic protagonist, but leaning more towards social commentary than political. However, I have such mixed feelings about it. Even if I agree with the book's messages about wealth disparity, meaningless jobs, and how systems need kindness, the length of the book overstays its welcome and the didactic ending feels heavy handed.
Some of its travel destinations felt repetitive by the end, and in my opinion a number could have been edited out without the book losing much at all. (If I were to make these edits, I personally would have trimmed out Decommissioning, the Library, Ubot; oh, and also, some of God's employment opportunities, as I feel like the Jul@#!% scene covers that just as effectively.)
This is one of the ones you can tell he had fun writing.
The tone is all across the spectrum, from farcical to bleak to heartwarming, and the writing is characteristically delightful, with lots of flippant throwaway lines.
I love that @janellecshane@wandering.shop got a well-deserved mention in the acknowledgements.
I've come to expect more from Tchaikovsky. This one let me down.
