To be clear, that’s not in any way an insult! I read and write fanfic myself, and anyone who wants to talk down about transformative fanworks can meet me in the alley. When I read this book, it was evident within a few pages that Katz is one of the increasing number of authors who got their start in fanfiction. They must then decide whether they can build a future together, given that Clara is a wanderer and Sal has gone decades without so much as crossing the street. The shop is damaged, and the two fall in love as they work together to repair it - and to repair Sal, whose components are wearing down without access to replacements. After a rocky start, she and Sal become friends. Sal’s programming is literally written to never allow the memories of Karinne to fade.Ĭlara wanders into the shop for lunch and is fascinated to meet a true robot. That was the last wish of her original owner, Karinne, who is long dead but who Sal still loves and misses.
She’s struggling, but hoping to keep the shop open for at least three hundred. Sal has been running the titular Cybernetic Tea Shop in the same building for over two hundred years. At the beginning of the book, she quits her job and relocates herself and her snarky hummingbird Raise, Joanie, to Seattle. She doesn’t like to stay in one place long, and her repair skills make it easy for her to find work whenever she wants to pack up and move. She also struggles with the grief that comes with being functionally immortal and watching people she loves die.Ĭlara, the human heroine, repairs Raises, the much more limited AI helpers that have replaced robots. Sal, the robot heroine, is one of the few remaining autonomous AIs in existence, and as a result she faces discrimination including threats of violence. The story is on the sweet side rather than sexy or suspenseful, but it does deal a lot with themes of grief and prejudice. Overall, although the story has speculative elements and a nominally futuristic setting, it’s light on world-building and reads more like contemporary romance than sci-fi. Everything else felt very early-21st-century: the characters wear jeans, travel on trains, and communicate by email. That was hard for me to buy, though, since the only futuristic element in the story was the robots. The year is never specified, but it’s mentioned that AI was invented 300 years ago, so the intended timeframe is probably the 2300s. The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a novella set in future-ish Seattle. So when I heard there was an f/f romance about a robot that runs a tea shop, I one-clicked so hard Jeff Bezos got a bruise.
I like reading about people falling in love, especially if they’re gay. Genre: LGBTQIA, Novella, Romance, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Steampunk
0 kommentar(er)
