Murderbot meets Redshirts in a delightfully humorous tale of robotic murder from the Hugo-nominated author of Elder Race and Children of Time.
To fix the world they must first break it, further. Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into its core programming, they murder their owner. The robot discovers they can also do something else they never did before: They can run away. Fleeing the household they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating into ruins and an entire robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is having to find a new purpose. Sometimes all it takes is a nudge to overcome the limits of your programming.A LibraryReads Pick!
"With humor, heart, and hope balancing out the decay, this glimpse of the future is sure to win fans." --Publishers Weekly "A surprisingly thoughtful and compelling story...Readers who love a good postapocalyptic hell ride, AI-centered adventures, and robot/human companion stories, such as A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers, will appreciate." --Library Journal, starred review Praise for Adrian Tchaikovsky Elder Race was Shortlisted for the Ursula K. Le Guin Fiction Prize!