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Book: A Psalm for the Wild-Built
Author: Becky Chambers
Series: Monk & Robot #1
Pages: 160
Source: Library
Genre: Science Fiction
Goodreads Summary:
It’s been centuries since the robots of Earth gained self-awareness and laid down their tools.
Centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again.
Centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of “what do people need?” is answered.
But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They’re going to need to ask it a lot.
My Review:
Becky Chambers is an award-winning science fiction author. Her Wayfarer’s series won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Series, and she has been on my radar for quite some time now. While I do plan to make time to read the Wayfarer’s series this year, I was even more excited to hear about her plans to start a new series of novellas. This has been a busy year for me, and sometimes it’s nice to just read a short and sweet novella instead of binging an entire series.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get approved for an ARC of this novella, but my local library fulfilled my “Suggest a Purchase” request. I just picked up A Psalm for the Wild-Built yesterday, and I flew through it.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a short, interesting sci-fi novella with a non-binary main character and robots that somehow manages to be equal parts bucolic, snarky, thought-provoking, and introspective. That being said, the Goodreads summary is a bit misleading, and it doesn’t match the summary inside the book cover.
The story takes place on a colonized moon called Panga that orbits a gas giant planet called Motan. As humans will do, we built factories and roads and all the other environment-wrecking things we believe necessary for us to live. That is, until all the robots we built to work for us woke up. Thus, the Great Transition began. Rather than enforce our will upon the newly sentient robots, we made a Promise with them. They could go and live as they wished, and humans would resolve to live in harmony with the environment.
This world, many years later, is the one in which we meet Sibling Dex, a monk of one of the Child Gods called Allalae featured in the religion humans on Panga follow. However, Dex isn’t satisfied with their life as a garden monk, and their new vocation as a tea monk doesn’t seem to satisfy them either. Dex has everything they could possibly need or want, but still, there seems to be something missing from their life.
It’s in this frame of mind that Dex sets out to find crickets, a species long extinct on Panga due to humans’ general destruction of the environment in the Factory Age. On this journey, Dex encounters a robot named Splendid Speckled Mosscap – or Mosscap for short. Mosscap is on a journey to reconnect with humans and to answer the question, “What do humans need?”
The ensuing quest they undertake together manages to provide commentary on complex subjects like personhood, agency, the environmental impacts of humans, and hopelessness. Dex struggles with the idea that they have everything they need but seems to be unable to lead a satisfying life. Mosscap struggles with the idea that humans don’t always know what they need and the ever-shifting concept of need in itself. Together they use common knowledge of the local religion to overcome misunderstandings and become friends.
Now, perhaps it’s just the cynic in me, but the only thing about this story that I found hard to believe was its optimism. A Psalm for the Wild-Built is incredibly optimistic in its interpretation of how humans would handle robotic sentience and the consequences of unchecked industry. As evidenced by our world today, I can’t help but think, “There is no way we would just let robots be. We can’t even let our next-door neighbors be, much less something we created and feel we have dominance over.”
Do I think we could change? Sure. Do I think it would be hundreds of years in the future? Also, yes. People as we are today would not react well to sentient robots. We would not seek to heal the damage we’ve caused to our environment. Not all of us, anyway. So, this novella is also a look at how we could behave. It’s commentary on the environment and human nature.
What would we do if we had everything we needed but still felt unsatisfied? What would we do if we found ourselves in a seemingly impossible situation? How would we solve the problems we faced in peace instead of adversity? According to the Pangan religion’s Insights, we would “find the strength to do both.” We would find the strength to solve our problems and find peace, both within ourselves and in our world. This could be the world of our future, if we put in the work to get there.
My Rating:
I gave A Psalm for the Wild-Built four out of five stars. This novella manages to cram a lot of introspection and important commentary in its slim 160 pages, but certain over-optimistic scenes disrupted my immersion in the story. It is still a wonderful read that I plan to enjoy again very soon. This story is one that should be digested, re-read, and contemplated, and I am excited to see where the rest of the series goes.
Have you read A Psalm for the Wild-Built? What about Becky Chambers’ other books? Let me know what you think in the comments!
Tea Rex Reads 