Service Model

Because its satire and its supposed to be a little dark, the balance needs to be just right. For me the humor wasn't quite landing which left the darker parts dominating my impression of the book. The humor / satire wasn't bad it just wasn't quite hitting from me. It felt a bit like watch something funny in your second language where you can appreciate the joke but the layer of indirection means that you don't quite feel it.

I could easily see myself loving this book if I read it at a different time or in a different head space.

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.

Reminiscent of Monk and Robot though broader and darker, we're along for a calm inquisitive road novel with an earnest robot butler some moment after the world as they and we know it ended. Satirically enjoys itself in upending formulaic scenes and takes us to some imaginative places, surprisingly light fun.

Een uiterst vermakelijke roman van Adrian Tchaikovsky over een kamerheer robot die zijn beschermde wereldje verlaat en de wereld gaat ontdekken. Die blijkt lang zo logisch als dat de robot geprogrammeerd is. Grappig en filosofisch tegelijk.

Humanity followed human nature and delegated a lot to robots - things aren’t going well for the humans now at all. Biting social commentary that made me groan and laugh aloud in equal measure. Charles the robot simply wants a new job as a valet. Lining up additional Adrian Tchaikovsky in the queue for 2025.

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.

I bought this book almost 100% based on the description of it being Murderbot meets Redshirts, and it does not disappoint.

Somehow, this book manages to feel both timeless and absolutely a product of this very moment in history - addressing the problems faced by our society and its present love of artificial intelligence in a way that just as easily could be commentary on the industrial revolution or mechanization or automation.

The references (starting from the very first section heading) made me laugh aloud on numerous occasions, and Tchaikovsky's dry and self-aware humour at his own use of convention is delightful.

This book won't be for everyone, but it was certainly for me.

Service Model reminds me of Tchaikovsky's Dogs of War.

Written for a very novice sci-fi audience, every concept is explained in exhaustive detail and in first person. which turned out to be a very convoluted way of conveying the sciencefictional idea behind the novel that the experienced reader got early on.

I got through about 30% of the book and gave up.

This one starts out slow and repetitive, and I almost stopped early on. But I’m glad I didn’t and pushed through. Service Model is part parable, part “be yourself” even if all you want to do is serve tea and fold shirts through a series of unfortunate events during the collapse of humanity.