Scott Graham
Added to listOwnedwith 151 books.
Dex, the monk, and Mosscap, the robot embark on their journey to find the answer to the robots’ question: what do human’s need? As you would expect, Mosscap becomes a handyman for hire of sorts. Dex continues their dark night of the soul; they’ve lost their raison d’être. More philosophical than narrative, literally not much happens. It ends with them figuratively riding off into the sunset, having discovered their need for human(?) contact, and finding it in each other.
Dex, the monk, and Mosscap, the robot embark on their journey to find the answer to the robots’ question: what do human’s need? As you would expect, Mosscap becomes a handyman for hire of sorts. Dex continues their dark night of the soul; they’ve lost their raison d’être. More philosophical than narrative, literally not much happens. It ends with them figuratively riding off into the sunset, having discovered their need for human(?) contact, and finding it in each other.
Added to listOwnedwith 150 books.
Added to listOwnedwith 149 books.
Added to listOwnedwith 148 books.
A gentle parable of seeking your purpose or finding contentment in simply existing with consciousness and self-awareness. The monk named Dex travels a circuit of towns listening to the problems or trials of the people they come across and blending a tea to ameliorate their concerns. During a circuit, they decide to go off course to see an abandoned building called The Hermitage, once known as a refuge for those monks or laypeople with weltschmerz, because Dex hasn’t discovered it quite yet, but they are in the midst of their own dark night of the soul. While off their normal curcuit on the not maintained road to the Hermitage, they encounter Mosscap, a wildbuilt robot descendent of the robots who first became self aware and amicably separated from humans. Mosscap is fulfulling the promise the robots made on their separation, to come back and ask humans if they need anything. Dex is in pursuit of their own purpose in the world and Mosscap is in pursuit of fulfilling its predecessors’ promise. Dex declines helping Mosscap in its promise, while Mosscap presses its help on Dex in their quest to reach the Hermitage. Lessons are gently taught, and the segue to A Prayer For The Crown-Shy is set up. The only issue that I had with the short novel was the unexplained and seemingly unmotivated use of non-binary pronouns for Dex, which results in the more than occasional lack of reference. At first, the use of they/them/their suggests Dex is with another party, until the reader susses out that the undeclared non-binary Dex is in fact non-binary (or Becky Chambers is engaging in prosaic battle in an undeclared literary war). Later the they/them/their usage suggests reference to both Dex AND Mosscap when it only refers to Dex. It’s a little murky, but not insurrmountable.
A gentle parable of seeking your purpose or finding contentment in simply existing with consciousness and self-awareness. The monk named Dex travels a circuit of towns listening to the problems or trials of the people they come across and blending a tea to ameliorate their concerns. During a circuit, they decide to go off course to see an abandoned building called The Hermitage, once known as a refuge for those monks or laypeople with weltschmerz, because Dex hasn’t discovered it quite yet, but they are in the midst of their own dark night of the soul. While off their normal curcuit on the not maintained road to the Hermitage, they encounter Mosscap, a wildbuilt robot descendent of the robots who first became self aware and amicably separated from humans. Mosscap is fulfulling the promise the robots made on their separation, to come back and ask humans if they need anything. Dex is in pursuit of their own purpose in the world and Mosscap is in pursuit of fulfilling its predecessors’ promise. Dex declines helping Mosscap in its promise, while Mosscap presses its help on Dex in their quest to reach the Hermitage. Lessons are gently taught, and the segue to A Prayer For The Crown-Shy is set up. The only issue that I had with the short novel was the unexplained and seemingly unmotivated use of non-binary pronouns for Dex, which results in the more than occasional lack of reference. At first, the use of they/them/their suggests Dex is with another party, until the reader susses out that the undeclared non-binary Dex is in fact non-binary (or Becky Chambers is engaging in prosaic battle in an undeclared literary war). Later the they/them/their usage suggests reference to both Dex AND Mosscap when it only refers to Dex. It’s a little murky, but not insurrmountable.
Added to listOwnedwith 147 books.
