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Bakertyl's Reviews > Service Model
Service Model
by
by
If Kafka wrote about robots. I've never felt this frustration or pity for a computer before.
Our protagonist is a valet robot, a butler for the rich. We see into his logic tree, and are introduced to the running joke that humans are inefficient; his Master told him to check for travel plans every morning, and though his Master hasn't traveled for over 700 days and checking for travel plans are the last thing done each night, the valet continues checking for travel plans after noting how inefficient this task is. This trend of cycles of illogic are funny for a particular kind of nerd, similar to how "The Martian" was appealing to a certain kind of engineer. I found the jokes repetitious but realistic and honestly funny at times. If you like xkcd.com, you'll like the logic of a robot trying his best with his built-in AI fails to predict the next decision tree.
The story follows the pattern of "The Odyssey", our robot must leave his Master's mansion and go into a world collapsed, moving from trial to hopeful solution to another soul-crushing trial. He looks for employment at neighboring estates, but overgrown gardens and boarded up windows force him to keep moving. Society has collapsed recently, everything is falling apart, imagine the world of Wall-E right before the rocket took some people to space and we get to see what's left behind. We meet some Mad Max survivors, a historical reenactment with conscripted service, and manage to recreate the Wizard of Oz from first principles.
Tchaikovsky continues to impress with excellent writing. His ability to instill feeling in the reader is impressive. I found myself pitying a robot with the saddest last words I've heard, and later scared of a Five Nights at Freddy babysitter that would murder your soul while reciting nursery rhymes. Tchaikovsky has a knack for the right amount and timing for creepy and darkness.
Lots of references and Easter eggs that kind of distract from the story. There's no date or year, but the technology feels a few decades from now, but references from Lord of the Rings, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that "footprints in the sand" poem, make everything feel very close to today. I didn't mind them until a robot made a Hitchhiker's Guide reference that ruined the immersion in the story... that it happened in one of my favorite scenes in the story didn't help
The book ends with a heavy-handed criticism of capitalism that isn't easy to disagree with. We've AI'd and Chat GPT'd people out of work, but still value people for their output. What do we do with the people we've made obsolete? The secondary battle between Stoicism (This thing isn't good or bad, just a thing that happens) with humanism was there, I didn't notice it until reflecting on the story later... it's not subtle, but there's a lot going on near the end of the book.
Overall, highly recommend.
**I received this book from NetGalley, this is my honest review.
Our protagonist is a valet robot, a butler for the rich. We see into his logic tree, and are introduced to the running joke that humans are inefficient; his Master told him to check for travel plans every morning, and though his Master hasn't traveled for over 700 days and checking for travel plans are the last thing done each night, the valet continues checking for travel plans after noting how inefficient this task is. This trend of cycles of illogic are funny for a particular kind of nerd, similar to how "The Martian" was appealing to a certain kind of engineer. I found the jokes repetitious but realistic and honestly funny at times. If you like xkcd.com, you'll like the logic of a robot trying his best with his built-in AI fails to predict the next decision tree.
The story follows the pattern of "The Odyssey", our robot must leave his Master's mansion and go into a world collapsed, moving from trial to hopeful solution to another soul-crushing trial. He looks for employment at neighboring estates, but overgrown gardens and boarded up windows force him to keep moving. Society has collapsed recently, everything is falling apart, imagine the world of Wall-E right before the rocket took some people to space and we get to see what's left behind. We meet some Mad Max survivors, a historical reenactment with conscripted service, and manage to recreate the Wizard of Oz from first principles.
Tchaikovsky continues to impress with excellent writing. His ability to instill feeling in the reader is impressive. I found myself pitying a robot with the saddest last words I've heard, and later scared of a Five Nights at Freddy babysitter that would murder your soul while reciting nursery rhymes. Tchaikovsky has a knack for the right amount and timing for creepy and darkness.
Lots of references and Easter eggs that kind of distract from the story. There's no date or year, but the technology feels a few decades from now, but references from Lord of the Rings, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, that "footprints in the sand" poem, make everything feel very close to today. I didn't mind them until a robot made a Hitchhiker's Guide reference that ruined the immersion in the story... that it happened in one of my favorite scenes in the story didn't help
The book ends with a heavy-handed criticism of capitalism that isn't easy to disagree with. We've AI'd and Chat GPT'd people out of work, but still value people for their output. What do we do with the people we've made obsolete? The secondary battle between Stoicism (This thing isn't good or bad, just a thing that happens) with humanism was there, I didn't notice it until reflecting on the story later... it's not subtle, but there's a lot going on near the end of the book.
Overall, highly recommend.
**I received this book from NetGalley, this is my honest review.
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Reading Progress
March 5, 2024
– Shelved
May 3, 2024
–
Started Reading
May 5, 2024
–
Finished Reading
