4h runtime; narrated by Emmett Grosland
English language
Published July 12, 2022 by Macmillan Audio.
After touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home.
They hope to find the answers they seek while making new friends, learning new concepts, and experiencing the entropic nature of the universe.
A must-read if you read the first book. Really good.
This is the perfect time for me to be reading these.
Gut zu lesen, wie ein entspannter Spaziergang mit Freunden.
this book called my savior complex out and then gave me a hug. im still not over it.
This little arc charms my heart as all of Becky Chambers books do.
The world is so big and the story so intimate, the climax a hidden tiny change in a conversation.
Content warning Oblique reference to ending
Been struggling a bit with starting new fiction, and have fond memories of reading the first of this sequence on a trip to the Isle of Skye a year and a half ago, so started this as a way to prime the pump for future reading. A satisfying, enjoyable read on its own merits, incorporating some great descriptive material, and more thoughtful than it had to be, adding depth to an otherwise light-touch bildungsrobot (sorry) plot. The ending is well-judged, breaching reader expectations while keeping things open, and I really appreciated being able to start and finish a book in a single sitting.
Probably even lower on dramatic tension than the first book, but that's just fine -- that's not what's needed here. Instead we have a gentle journey between various human settlements as the background to Dex and Mosscrops' developing relationship and their respective struggles with making sense of life.
I felt the first book was too short, but this one with the characters already presented, could dig into the deeper discussions of life and our place in it. It was also hilariously funny at times!
Maybe you sometimes need a friendly robot to make you understand the idea of mindfulness. Ironic.
Content warning minor spoilers
A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the second novella in this series; if the first book focused a bit more on Sibling Dex's journey, this book switches to look at Mosscap and Sibling Dex's shared travel to small towns across Panga. Their journey is presented as a series of vignettes which fill in worldbuilding details and bring in a number of different themes. Because of this, I think this book feels more winding and broad than the first one, but it's still just as endearing.
There's just so many delightful Mosscap moments: Mosscap being newly excited about every tree along the road; Mosscap waking up Sibling Dex up at a godawful early hour because they're just too impatient to discuss a book and then continuing that discussion while Dex attempts to pee; Mosscap bursting in to congratulate Dex about having sex.
Reading both of these back to back makes me appreciate how much the second book's ending is an echo of the first's, where each resolves an uncomfortable question that has been hanging in the air between Dex and Mosscap while also getting to the heart of their own struggles (that continue to hit me right in my own insecurities).
Taps into the feeling of lacking purpose, or at least the need for questioning it, wondering why even when things are comfortable and work is meaningful it still can feel like there's something more out there. For such gentle books—ones that are almost entirely lacking in conflict, even—it's impressive how much feeling they can pack in. Still doesn't go into the religion in the way that I was hoping, but maybe that's something to start fleshing out myself, if it's something I'm noticing as an absence.
I want to pedal around in a double-decker bike with a robot.
The world described in these books is one that I would love to live in, more than that described in any other science fiction book. Forget cyberpunk, give me solarpunk for life! It's a great book to read before bed, as the book is like a warm hug, helping you settle down and relax before going to sleep.
And to that end, welcome comfort, for without it, you cannot stay strong.
First of all: I'm not crying, you're crying.
In all seriousness, I have no idea how Becky Chambers does this. Her stories are always so impossibly, impeccably full of kindness that I almost feel unworthy of reading them, and also like I'm becoming a better person simply by delving into these books. That's especially true when it comes to the Monk & Robot novellas.
I honestly loved every step of this new journey. It was a delight to explore the world of Panga—not just the natural world that served as a backdrop for Dex's inner searchings (and a character in its own right) in the first part of the series, although nature remains incredibly important here, as well. But this time, we get to delve into the inner workings of the society, with their green technologies and …
And to that end, welcome comfort, for without it, you cannot stay strong.
An excellent sequel to A Psalm for the Wild-Built - It was so satisfying to delve in deeper into this world and experience a story driven by personal growth and learning rather than crisis. Loved it!
i appreciate this book most for it's depiction of a compelling alternative to capitalism (edit: i learned the term 'solarpunk' recently and that feels appropriate here). it is essentially a tour of of utopia, with mosscap the robot working as a device to explore the details of a new society at each destination - an economy without currency, based on cooperation and collective benefit; normalization of non-binary gender identities; non-monogamy and alternative family structures; an ethos of sustainability and ecological awareness; post-fossil fuel technology (what extraction is required for those ubiquitous 'pocket computers' though?). the author does this with a light hand, never getting lost in what could easily be a morass of details.
the growing companionship of dex and mosscap is endearing, but i didn't see much in the way of character development in this story. <spoiler>dex began the book with their main emotional dilemma around purpose, not feeling …
i appreciate this book most for it's depiction of a compelling alternative to capitalism (edit: i learned the term 'solarpunk' recently and that feels appropriate here). it is essentially a tour of of utopia, with mosscap the robot working as a device to explore the details of a new society at each destination - an economy without currency, based on cooperation and collective benefit; normalization of non-binary gender identities; non-monogamy and alternative family structures; an ethos of sustainability and ecological awareness; post-fossil fuel technology (what extraction is required for those ubiquitous 'pocket computers' though?). the author does this with a light hand, never getting lost in what could easily be a morass of details.
the growing companionship of dex and mosscap is endearing, but i didn't see much in the way of character development in this story. <spoiler>dex began the book with their main emotional dilemma around purpose, not feeling called to serve tea anymore, and ended the book in the same place albeit with an acceptance of the uncertainty.</spoiler> there's a lesson there, surely, but i wasn't able to connect on an emotional level with this book like i did with the 1st in the series. as for the robot, it gets to expand it's conception of humanity and what kinds of society we can create. the most sinister impact of capitalism has been to conflate the notion of 'apocalypse' with the end of that system, so this story serves as a subtle yet powerful act of resistance through imagination.
