Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky |
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Originally published: 2024 Acquired: May 2025 Read: July 2025 |
Cover blurbs are interesting, in that they give you a sense of what kind of reader the publisher thinks a book will appeal to. For example, following the publication of Ancillary Justice, it seemed to me that basically every book with any vague space opera trappings was blurbed by Ann Leckie. I was surprised, then, to note that Adrian Tchaikovksky's Service Model was blurbed by John Scalzi, because it's hard for me to imagine that there is significant overlap there. Tchaikovsky writes hard sf with a biological bent, which isn't really the Scalzi tone at all. But as I began reading Service Model, I got it.
This is supposed to be funny.
Unfortunately, I didn't find it funny at all, aside from one joke about remote work. The book is about a valet robot who accidentally(?) kills its owner and then goes on a quest for purpose; the book takes place after the majority of human have died, and only robots remain. The book goes from the robot's original estate, to the central planning office for robots, to a collective farm, to a library, to God. What might have been a perfectly fine novella is a bloated tedious novel; there are by no means enough ideas, depth, or character work to fill almost 400 pages.
It read quickly, at least.
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