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angelal 's review for:
A Psalm for the Wild-Built
by Becky Chambers
Mild spoilers throughout I guess? Idk this book is so quiet and tone-driven I feel like technically everything is a spoiler and nothing is.
I have rather mixed feelings about this book, although I think most of my issues probably come down to pacing so I'll probably pick up the next one.
To start with, I loved all of the robot stuff. Everything to do with Mosscap and robot culture and all of that was gorgeous and I loved it. This book is also beautiful and soft and gentle in the way Chambers' work so often is. There is a very good chance that if you like her other stuff, you'll like this.
That said, while I liked Dex, they didn't super work for me. The way that Dex's frustration and dissatisfaction with their life and work was framed felt very 2020s. I had a hard time understanding how a person raised in the culture and family Dex came from would tie their worth to their work in the particular way that is so common in our society (and honestly I often didn't feel like Dex was doing that throughout the story, but they embraced that explanation at the end so apparently they were). Dex just didn't feel quite of their world in the way that I would want.
Additionally, the society in this story felt very utopian to me but also felt off. For example a world in which everyone subscribes to the same theology feels super creepy to me, as does a world where generations have been essentially banned from going into the wilderness to such an extent that Dex doesn't realize wandering off into it is basically a death sentence (a mistake people seem to make semi-regularly and then die from). And these things aren't necessarily seen as not-problems, but there's just such a warmth around the society without any real critique (and so much of the society does seem really, genuinely good) that it feels a bit uncanny valley. I think a lot of that has to do with the book spending a good quarter of its page time in the society without actually having that be a focus, so it might get improved in the future, but it felt creepy to me here.
That said, Chambers is still a very thoughtful, empathetic writer and I think this book will probably vibe with lots of folks. And all of the robot stuff is so good I'll likely pick up the next one.
I have rather mixed feelings about this book, although I think most of my issues probably come down to pacing so I'll probably pick up the next one.
To start with, I loved all of the robot stuff. Everything to do with Mosscap and robot culture and all of that was gorgeous and I loved it. This book is also beautiful and soft and gentle in the way Chambers' work so often is. There is a very good chance that if you like her other stuff, you'll like this.
That said, while I liked Dex, they didn't super work for me. The way that Dex's frustration and dissatisfaction with their life and work was framed felt very 2020s. I had a hard time understanding how a person raised in the culture and family Dex came from would tie their worth to their work in the particular way that is so common in our society (and honestly I often didn't feel like Dex was doing that throughout the story, but they embraced that explanation at the end so apparently they were). Dex just didn't feel quite of their world in the way that I would want.
Additionally, the society in this story felt very utopian to me but also felt off. For example a world in which everyone subscribes to the same theology feels super creepy to me, as does a world where generations have been essentially banned from going into the wilderness to such an extent that Dex doesn't realize wandering off into it is basically a death sentence (a mistake people seem to make semi-regularly and then die from). And these things aren't necessarily seen as not-problems, but there's just such a warmth around the society without any real critique (and so much of the society does seem really, genuinely good) that it feels a bit uncanny valley. I think a lot of that has to do with the book spending a good quarter of its page time in the society without actually having that be a focus, so it might get improved in the future, but it felt creepy to me here.
That said, Chambers is still a very thoughtful, empathetic writer and I think this book will probably vibe with lots of folks. And all of the robot stuff is so good I'll likely pick up the next one.