If you need a story of chosen family and hope and good food, Automatic Noodle absolutely fits the bill. This is a delightful novella of a near-future where California has split from the United States after war, and part of California progressiveness was to give civil rights to human equivalent embodied intelligence (HEEI) robots. But those rights are limited – they’re not able to use a bank, own property, and there’s lots of prejudice against robots (very allegorical to American attitudes towards immigrants and marginalized groups). When a group of four robots – Staybehind, Sweetie, Hands, and Cayenne – find themselves in an abandoned storefront after being suddenly shut down five months ago and learn the company that owns the restaurant has abandoned them, they decide to become a proxy for the company on their contract in order to earn money to cover their leases so they won’t be permanently decommissioned.
Overall this is a very warm hug kind of book full of hope and possibility. I love the community the crew of Automatic Noodle builds and the ways they keep managing to survive, but also finding joy along the way. There’s a lot of trauma and pain because several of the robots were involved in the war, and even the ones who weren’t have experienced prejudice and harassment. Learning Staybehind’s backstory was especially heartbreaking, but in contrast I love Sweetie’s arc. It is a very trans story as she is changing her appearance to be more authentically herself, and her expressions of that experience hit my heart in such good ways.
I do think there’s something to be said about how California is independent from the rest of the United States, especially as there is sometimes an attitude of people living in red states deserve the situations they find themselves in. I do wish this could have been delved into a bit more, because California isn’t an oasis of perfection (and, to be clear, the world in the story is not presented as some bastion of good experiences, but there’s still politics in the world building) and the attitudes expressed towards the U.S. do hit a bit sideways.
All in all, though, I loved this book and I might have to try more from Annalee Newitz cuz the hope and community they write about is so good and warm-hug. I definitely recommend picking this book up!