Epeolatry Book Review: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky

From the scattering of  reviews I read about Service Model, it appeared that people did a lot of deep thinking about this book, both while reading it, and afterwards. Being a thinks-a-lot person myself, I could give the book a re-read and pen my own rarified-brain review. 

But to do so would detract from the quiet simplicity of this read. I am not sure whether that was intentional on the part of the author, but it felt very much like what a robot would write. It was drafted like how it would feel to experience the world through the eyes of the robot valet named Charles/Uncharles. Although the human race was on the way out, leaving behind a population of robots in the wake of their mass extinction, Service Model was still littered with tiny bittersweet moments and interpersonal exchanges.

As a reader, I wanted to linger over the poignancy of those moments, let them sink in and resonate, but the novel’s tone reminded me that it was a human sentiment that had no place in this “Brave New World” of machines. The story, and Uncharles the robot, would march objectively on down the road despite my maudlin-infused pangs and despite the other robots callously left behind to undergo their own post-people fates. Every time I felt a pang of emotion creep up, the book ploped me right back into the impartial, and straightforward, perspective of the robot experience. It made the read a little unsettling, and yet also strangely cozy and comforting.

Reading this book from a philosophical-people-perspective does this near-futuristic tale a disservice, and that, at least, is something both I and the robot valet Uncharles, agree to be an unacceptable tragedy.

I’d recommend this as a literary adventure that’s perfect for a frosty winter evening!

/5

Available from Amazon. and Bookshop.