Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky - ARC Review

 

Book Review: 

Service Model

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Release Date: June 04, 2024 

Genre: Sci-Fi

Age Range: Adult

Goodreads Avg. Rating: 3.98 stars

Thank you so very much to Netgalley and Tor for the chance to provide my opinion on this book. The description really had me intrigued and the comparable titles, while I've never read, only made me more curious. From the first chapter, this book was very catching.

This story takes place on Earth, let's call it maybe an alternate or future version as no real dates are ever given. In this dystopian landscape, we also do not particularly know what country it takes place in. We start in an area of the city where wealthy people had manors to keep them away from the trouble, outside of that manor district the city rapidly falls into disrepair and then to ruins. Through the story, you will find that the ruins are everywhere but on this side of the mountain (yes they really only say it mountain but I believe it would mean mountains as they find it an absolute obstacle) it is less devastating than the state of the landscape on the other side. There are some explanations given for the state of things but I still find it odd with the timeline.

Our guide through this story is Charles, a gentleman's gentlerobot. He is a valet at one of the manor houses and is quite satisfied with his job. Charles doesn't really mind that several of his daily tasks make some processes inefficient due to badly worded instructions. A few times in the book he seems to be willfully ignoring facts he should know. Then at others even if Charles is adamant that he is not a self-aware robot the way he helps is quite unlike any of the others. We will have a secondary character but not POV, this is the Wonk. The Wonk appears to be another human interacting robot to Charles, it just happens to have several functional defects that cause the Wonk to speak oddly.

The story follows Charles attending to his valet duties at the manor until an unexplained event happens. As the matter is explored it appears that life as Charles has known it might be at an end. The only course forward is at Central Services, where all robots must go for diagnostics and repairs. While there Charles encounters the Wonk. All is not as it seems in the world and Charles finds he is unable to complete his task list. So the hunt begins to find new employment and a way to clear whatever pesky defect caused the incident at the manor.

While the humor and depth of the book might not be for everyone I found it great. As with most Tchaikovsky books, this one looks at some deep aspects. The book is broken down into five parts and something I didn't notice myself is that the title of each part is actually an author. As each part does have a slightly different take on events Charles must go through it’s a good guess that those sections would be inspired by philosophical points made by those authors. Through the book, we look at several topics, such as humanity, greed, and what is being self-aware. In this book, I find that the questions it makes the reader think about are well balanced with the humor of Charles. It is not that he is supposed to be a funny robot more so just his interactions with the world and the specific view he tries to maintain even as it's all going to hell.

This was such a fun read. The story took me by surprise from the beginning as it was not at all what I had expected from the description. Yes, we did get what was mentioned but then went past that quickly and in a great way. Charles is taken along through his own quest through each part of the book, even if all he wants is to be a helpful valet. I'm so happy to have gone on the odd journey with Charles and Wonk, that even at the end I could only be left feeling contentment. I will definitely recommend this oddly cozy humorous outlook to the apocalypses. Though I'll forever be mad at the Chief Librarian.

You can find this book from the below retailers:

Amazon     Barnes & Noble    Pan MacMillan