Synopsis:
To fix the world they first must break it further.
Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.
Review:
I was sent a copy of Service Model in exchange for an honest review.
Adrian Tchaikovsky can do no wrong. Service Model is an utter triumph of fun sci-fi with an added edge of things being a liiiiittle too close to home. Told entirely from the perspective of Charles, a personal valet robot who embarks on quite the journey.
Charles at the start of the book is a very unintentionally humorous robot, and his observations of the world around him are so very naive. I really enjoyed the first quarter of the book where he’s interacting with other robots who are following their routines, and the lack of human interaction is messing with their systems. A particular favourite was the detective and doctor robots, it was for me the first realisation of just how funny this book can be.
Early on in the book you meet The Wonk, a character I really grew to love, whose real identity is completely uncomprehensible to Charles. I really loved their interactions and how their friendship developed. I also enjoyed being able to see information Charles just couldn’t, it’s such a clever way of writing to have the information readily available but have your main character unable to understand due to their programming. Charles works in task lists and clear instructions, something he’s severely lacking when he is suddenly without a master.
I loved the world building. You figure out pretty quick the generics of what has happened to the world, and as Charles wanders the land the puzzle pieces start coming together, although I still never guessed exactly what had been going on. Charles again is pretty naive to everything, so as the reader you’re fed the information and can understand it in a way Charles can’t.
Watching every robot be unable to function due to a lack of human authority and seeing them run endlessly through task lists (even if it means standing still while they rust away) was just novel to me. The idea that they need the human prompts and can’t function alone worked so well and added so much reality to the book. I loved it and really don’t want to spoil anything more.
This is one of my top books of the year so far. Adrian Tchaikovsky always writes the best books. This one is no exception.
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