By Becky Chambers
Simple, quiet little story in which not much happens, but satisfying like a good dessert. In some far distant future/planet humans live in balance with nature after all machines and robots took into their heads to leave the human world and live apart in the wilderness. Its not clear how this utopian loveliness came about (maybe some future volumes will clear this up) but it’s a very pleasant suspension of disbelief. However harmonious this sounds, existential questions still haunt the tea monk protagonist, who goes on a quest, makes friends with a wild-built robot, and ponders what it is that humans actually need. Nice contrast to the normal dystopian sadness of the fantasy/sci-fi genre.
