Automatic Noodle by Annalee NewitzMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I was provided an ALC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.
This was delightful. I'm a huge fan of cozy scifi and cozy fantasy and this fits more of the cozy scifi bill. This follows a found family of robots who were abandoned by their humans several months ago. They were all contracted to make mediocre food for takeout, but now they have no purpose. They put their heads and coin together and decide to open their own restaurant making food they want to serve as their head chef has always wanted to make noodles that humans would actually want to eat. They each have talents to support their venture and when the their noodle business starts becoming a success they are all elated. Then the negative reviews come in threatening their hard work. The robots have to band together again to save their beloved noodle shop and thrive in a world that despite having rights for robots, still doesn't love them.
This was so wonderful. For being a novella, this packs in a ton of social commentary while still having a great storyline about found family and hope even if the characters are robots. The author's choice to use robots as metaphor for humans in this post-war San Francisco was brilliant.
I really enjoyed the narrator, they did voices for each of the characters which was important to distinguish which bot was which. If you are a fan of Becky Chambers or Travis Baldree I highly recommend this.
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