I don’t generally enjoy science fiction. I have enjoyed many books which have an element of science fiction but which are really about other things—Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun or Never Let Me Go, for example. But books which fit squarely into the science fiction genre rarely do much for me.

But, I like to challenge myself, so I picked up Becky Chambers’s 2021 science fiction novel after seeing it recommended by Andrew J Hawkins on The Verge.

The plot concerns a human monk, Dex, on some distant planet. Robots, previously used in much the same way as in the modern world, have become sentient, and for several centuries there has been a separation between areas where humans live and where robots live. Dex, however, comes into contact with Mosscap, a broadly humanoid robot who wants to understand the needs of humans which the robots might be able to support.

In a first for me, the central character of the novel, Dex, is non-binary and uses ‘they/them’ pronouns. I’ve never really thought about the honorific one would apply to a non-binary monk, but Chambers has: ‘Sibling Dex.’ Mosscap is mostly referred to using ‘it/its’ pronouns, but is occasionally also referred to using a ‘their’ as a possessive, and I couldn’t work out the pattern as to when this happened.

I was confused by the ‘they/them’ pronouns more often than I’d like to admit. When there are multiple characters in a scene and ‘they’ do something, I was often briefly confounded, despite the text being perfectly clearly written. I suppose this is an effect of unfamiliarity, and more exposure to these things over time will educate me.

The book explores ideas of identity and philosophy. The robot and the human share certain characteristics yet differ in key ways, and have to feel their way through the building of their relationship. There is also some exploration of what drives characters, and what makes them happy. This was all done in an atmosphere that I’d describe as ‘cosy’—this is a book to curl up with, not one that is challenging or especially thrilling. I enjoyed that about it.

But I’m still not raving about this book, and it’s because of that underlying lack of connection with science fiction. I found all the world-building a bit of a drag on the main thrust of the novel. For me, staging the novel between a human and a robot was also a little unnecessarily allegorical, and removed some of its impact. I think the same messages would have had more impact in a real-world setting, and it’s not hard to come up with possibilities.

This doesn’t in any way mean that this is a bad book, and clearly Chambers’s audience would disagree vociferously with me. For people who like science fiction, science fiction is the sort of thing they like, and more power to their elbow. But this wasn’t a breakthrough crossover novel that converted me as someone who typically avoids the genre.

I was also disappointed that the plot isn’t self-contained in this book. It is promoted as the first of a series, so perhaps I should have known what to expect, but this does feel very much like the opening section of a longer story rather than a complete work. I found that quite narratively unsatisfying.

I liked that this was short, cosy, touched on interesting philosophical discussions and had lovely central messages. I liked that it unapologetically immersed me in the modern use of pronouns. However, I’m not yet sure whether I’ll read the second in the series.

Some quotations I noted down:

You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is. If you want to do things that are meaningful to others, fine! Good! So do I! But if I wanted to crawl into a cave and watch stalagmites with Frostfrog for the remainder of my days, that would also be both fine and good. You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live.

They brought people joy. They made people’s day. That was a tremendous thing, when you sat and thought about it. That should’ve been enough. That should’ve been more than enough. And yet, if they were completely honest, the thing they had come to look forward to most was not the smiles nor the gifts nor the sense of work done well, but the part that came after all of that. The part when they returned to their wagon, shut themself inside, and spent a few precious, shapeless hours entirely alone.

Dex took note of Mosscap’s phrasing. “So, it is correct, then? You wouldn’t prefer they or—”

“Oh, no, no, no. Those sorts of words are for people. Robots are not people. We’re machines, and machines are objects. Objects are its.”

“I’d say you’re more than just an object,” Dex said.

The robot looked a touch offended. “I would never call you just an animal, Sibling Dex.” It turned its gaze to the road, head held high. “We don’t have to fall into the same category to be of equal value.”

It is difficult for anyone born and raised in human infrastructure to truly internalize the fact that your view of the world is backward. Even if you fully know that you live in a natural world that existed before you and will continue long after, even if you know that the wilderness is the default state of things, and that nature is not something that only happens in carefully curated enclaves between towns, something that pops up in empty spaces if you ignore them for a while, even if you spend your whole life believing yourself to be deeply in touch with the ebb and flow, the cycle, the ecosystem as it actually is, you will still have trouble picturing an untouched world. You will still struggle to understand that human constructs are carved out and overlaid, that these are the places that are the in-between, not the other way around.

Many thanks to Northumbria University library for letting me read their copy of this book.