Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz

Publisher - Tor

Published - hardback £4/9 Out Now in ebook

Price - £14.99 hardback £9.99 ebook

You don’t have to eat food to know the way to a city’s heart is through its stomach. So when a group of deactivated robots come back online in an abandoned ghost kitchen, they decide to make their own way doing what they know: making food―the tastiest hand-pulled noodles around―for the humans of San Francisco, who are recovering from a devastating war.

But when their robot-run business starts causing a stir, a targeted wave of one-star reviews threatens to boil over into a crisis. To keep their doors open, they’ll have to call on their customers, their community, and each other―and find a way to survive and thrive in a world that wasn’t built for them.

The concept of work in speculative fiction has a bit of a history. In fantasy we had for a long time just assigned roles of olden ages such as knights and various types of warrior plus perhaps more magical roles such as wizards these are roles we play and indeed later on many did! Authors such as Pratchett have then merged more modern roles into the fantasy genre such as journalism or even economics to allow us to interrogate our world’s own grasp of those professions. In science fiction work has been used in many ways. In Star Trek the idea is a money free society so people instead pursue the roles they want to. But Karel Capek over an hundred years ago introduced the concept of the robot as a way to critique capitalist society and its treatment of the working class. These two very different strands of science fiction can be in dialogue with each other and an intriguing crossing point for me arrives in the form of Annalee Newitz’s science fiction novella Automatic Noodle where the concept of work gets interrogated alongside providing us with a story that reminds us we should work to live not live to work.

In the near future California of 2064 and the country occasionally still referred to as The United States have ended a civil war and the new country of California is starting to move forwards. In San Francisco the robotic working crew of the business once known as the infamous Fritz Co (well known for opening chains of stores all achieving the worst culinary delights possible) reawaken to find a year has passed. in California robots live in a legal vacuum they do not yet have full rights of a citizen but can work to have some independence provided they pay their own bills or risk being repossessed and and assigned any role their manufacturer or government sees fit. To have a chance to survive the group decide they will try to run their own business. But this time on making good quality food they want to make, working together to be successful and also live the lives they have always wanted. Just when things look like they may just work a mysterious barrage of one star reviews threatens to take their business and their independence away.

I’m going to admit the recent trend for specialities fiction books with cosy career changes hasn’t quite worked for me I’ve been looking for a bit more as to why being a small business owner is the apparent life dream and yet Newitz’s tale completely won me over because it’s delved into why it’s important for the characters and allows us to also reflect on our own world. It also has a set of mainly robotic characters it’s very hard not to root for as we get to know them.

In a dramatic start we plunged into the group re-activating and it’s a neat way to drop us into a story where our main characters too need to catch up quickly. It sets up where they are, how their employers have left them high and dry and the urgency of why they need to act. However progressive this new California is robots are not citizens and do not have rights. Here there is no available safety net of social security, no one to turn to and they risk losing the little independence they all had had since the war. It’s hard not to think of the right wing direction of various countries to those not in work and the groups such as immigrants who while their contribution to the economy is taken that is as far as any government wants to deal with them. the decision to become a Noodle restaurant is less the perfect dream and more necessity.

Newitz really then allows us to see our characters in action. We have the former military robot Staybehind who however last well but will act when needed, Sweetie looks very humanoid from her waist but hides below multiple wheels and legs, the tentacles Cayenne who uses their arms to extract all potential flavours to a powerful obsession and equally looks to make money and deals while with Hands who is mainly just very powerful hands able to do anything with food. Newitz makes them human adjacent on their attitudes and some obsessions but also they’re defiantly not wanting to be human. They have their own plans. A very impressive early scene had the group all working together to get the restaurant operational in a storm and we get to see their various skills, the way they work together and appreciate they have non human abilities too.

There are the typical scenes of people learning new skills, we find the group adapting to being in charge from contract negotiations to suppliers and for Hands and Cayenne being able to make good food is both a passion and also a statement of their freedom especially when we have some flashbacks to what their manufacturers previously had in mind. The food scenes work (you will crave noodles) but it’s the character motivations I found really won me over. With Sweetie it allows her to have the time and resources to start the process of making her not look human but celebrate her own robotic nature and also aid a social community project. In a poignant flashback we see how Staybehind was treated in the way and we realise the trauma they are carrying so a fresh start is in many ways essential for what they are carrying. What I loved is work is not the be all of the story while yes they enjoy what they do it enables people to have resources to live and have time to explore who they are which in a capitalist society such as ours we tend to forget, we see the robots learning to express themselves, step out of the shadows and live and even love openly despite the lack of civil rights they have available to them, it’s not hard to see similarities with other marginalised groups. I also cannot help laughing at one character who highlights the many problems of robot depictions in human culture such as Knight Rider and Transformers movies.

Newitz also has a fascinating antagonist which comments on our world too. After initial success a spate of one star reviews avalanche and threaten the business losing its placing in directories. As Newitz makes us know why the characters need to work then the consequences of losing things really ring true. We soon find his Staybehind’s military skills that this is actually more than a simple unhappy customer and we delve into the reality of right wing trolls who love to oppress those groups they feel should not have rights and hints at the wider civil war conflict too. It’s a smart commentary on something we known happens in our own world as soon as any business, book or movie becomes ‘too progressive’ for some and the trolls will descend. I lied the insight into how these groups operate but also how our characters strike back not just strategically but also using the hostility to create their own campaign as the meaning of the book’s title will become clearer when you find out. There is a long history of groups taking the insults and giving them back as expressions of defiance. Some may say that these can be defeated easily but actually aren’t most trolls when we get down to it not that smart and hence why so many still get found out? Although we know they then seek power in other ways…

Automatic Noodle for me is that great combination of smart thoughtful social commentary and warm character focused storytelling that together creates a really engaging novella. One that should help us look at work slightly differently but also remind ourselves we are far more than just corporate bots. Strongly recommended!