The monk and robots are a slow paced, but also quite beautiful, reflections on life in a future, better, more just and more conscious world.

In the first book, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Becky Chambers introduced us to the robot Mosscap and the tea monk Sibling Dex as they struck up a friendship traveling through Panga on Mosscap’s quest to discover what people need. They have wandered the rural areas of Panga and now in book two, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, they travel through the villages and cities where Mosscap will continue to learn what people need.
In the continuation of this charming and cozy story, I adored the experience of nature, budding friendship, and the emotional complications of family.
Thanks to Tordotcom and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is scheduled for release on July 12, 2022.

A Psalm for the Wild-Built is an ultimate comfort read when I’m feeling insecure or like I’m not doing enough, and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy built upon that and made me feel…content. That it was okay to change plans, to listen to my mental health and just sit with life and feelings for minute. That not every second of non-paid work time has to be devoted to content creating or writing or doing, but that it is enough to just be.

Another intensely comforting comfort read from Chambers - this one does have a little more emotional conflict than the first, more wrestling with big questions, but still a remarkably gentle book.

Crown-shyness is a phenomenon where, if you look carefully at the canopies of trees, you’ll notice that they don’t quite touch each other. There’s no overcrowding and a mutual respect for space, though it’s unclear why this is. It’s a wonderful metaphor for the types of villages that exist in the world of Monk & Robot. Mosscap and Dex continue along their journey and encounter groups with different relationships to technology and the world around them.

This series continues maintaining an air of kindness born out of the ashes of a world that simply didn’t work. It’s cathartic, but comforting, with a focus on community and the meaning in existence.

It’s great fun to see Dex and Mosscap philosophically bicker. If watching a sunshine robot banter with a grumpy monk, there is much more of that here. In addition, we see the different dispositions of both characters as they interact with more of the population inhabiting the world. Some are pro-technology, some are wary, and others use futuristic bio-plastics to make something entirely new. I enjoyed the interlude specifically where Mosscap needs a minor repair. Especially given the current political climate, it’s an excellent exploration of where a body ends and a person begins. Does changing one part change the entire hardware? What if there are different components? The novella doesn’t give clear answers, but allows food for thought.

My heart softened so much at the entire concept of the pebs. It’s like currency, but it’s more accurately a form of social capital. There’s no expectation to maintain debts, with a more community-based focus on the give-and-take. This world feels constructed in response to the destruction emanating from late capitalism. As much as resources are still important to survival, community and relationships are paramount.

Once again, there is no coddling here, but this series continues to avoid unnerving and unsettling the reader. The most stressful bit is when Mosscap meets Dex’s family, and the reader is eased into that sequence.

Monk and Robot is all about the value in simply existing. It’s got big heart and big perspective, and I’m eager for the next installment.

- How else can I sing the praises of the Monk and Robot novellas? They are the kindest, warmest books I've ever read, while still sorting through the thorniness of existing.
- Dex and Mosscap are closer in this sequel, a real partnership, even if they still don't always understand each other.
- Honestly, I would read books set in any corner of this world. All the characters they encounter on their journey are wonderful and I would happily spend more time with any of them.

A well-paced and cozy sci-fi novella exploring a world through new eyes. The delight Mosscap finds in banal events and ordinary surroundings is influencing Dex to reassess their world and see new beauty where they only found duty. This installments sees Dex open up further than they have to others through most of their life and I hope to see their development continue in the next novella.

The second book in Chamber's Monk and Robot series, A Prayer for the Crown Shy follows Sibling Dex and Mosscap into human civilization so that Mosscap can ask people his question: what do humans need? As they roam through villages and small towns on their way to the City, Dex and Mosscap get varied and surprising answers while Dex's sense of alienation grows. Enjoyable and calming, Prayer lacks the punch of its predecessor while setting up the further adventures of its heroes. As a reader, it was hard to separate Dex's unhappiness with their chosen path from Chambers', making me feel oddly guilty about how much I love her work.

I'm not sure what to say other than like, putting Becky Chambers's name in all caps amidst a string of heart eyes and star emojis but this was another home run of a novella - hopeful, contemplative, character-driven, and beautiful in both its message and its writing style.

Perhaps it’s the times, or perhaps it’s my specific brand of pessimism, which I don’t wish on anyone, but A Prayer for the Crown-Shy made me sad. Not tragically so, and not also without making me think, making me smile, and ultimately making me glad, but this second entry in the Monk and Robot series definitely made for more complicated reading than I was expecting.

Becky Chambers, the reigning champion of Hopepunk, has of course delivered another very smart and delightful novella. That was always going to be the case, and anyone looking for more of her trademark wisdom will certainly be satisfied by this elegant and effervescent little book. However, I live in the accelerating tire fire that is America, and the ecological utopia of Panga feels unobtainable. It’s not just that it’s out of reach in our current moment; it’s being actively thwarted. In some ways, this is the best possible moment to be reading about a society that saved itself from a very similar disaster; in other ways, it feels like a bar that’s just too high to clear.

That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book! It also doesn’t mean you should avoid it if you share my outlook. It may be that it brings you straightforward comfort, in which case, great! Everyone deserves comfort, and hope, and a vision of the future that doesn’t suck. But it may also be that you have more complicated feelings about it, in which case you might feel at a loss to reconcile your experience of the book to the reviews that promise it will part the clouds, save the whales, and clear up your acne.

I’m exaggerating but I’m not trying to be sarcastic here. We do need books like this! We need to see futures that aren’t terrible, we need to know what the world looks like when it’s been saved, not from the Big Bad but from ourselves, and we need to know what we can do to keep it saved. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is about the necessity of this ongoing struggle, and the joy such wrestling can bring to the people willing to engage the big questions and big answers.

It does all that and manages to remain character-driven throughout. Dex and Mosscap struggle to find their respective places in human society while remaining true to themselves, a universal struggle that Chambers makes personal and poignant. There are so many amazing scenes that it’s hard to choose one to celebrate over any of the others. Mosscap meeting a dog? The beautifully empathetic fishing trip? The brilliant discussion of healing and prosthetics as a way of understanding robotic philosophies of extinction?

But let’s talk about the time when Dex explains pebs to Mosscap. Pebs are explicitly not currency, but rather a form of collective acknowledgement of individual contribution to society. Anyone can give any number of pebs, regardless of their personal balance. If someone goes into the red, it doesn’t mean they’re in trouble, or that they’re denied services; quite the opposite, in fact. A significant deficit means that person needs help, and should be given even more attention and care. And they don’t have to “repay” that care except by becoming happy and whole members of society again, at which point they will naturally begin contributing.

I want this to be the future. I want this to work so badly, this world of collective comfort and mutual care. But this story aches in me, not because I believe it’s untrue—I really do think that at our core, people want to be part of things and contribute—but because I fear it’s untrue. What if people are as petty, venial, and pointlessly cruel as we can so amply observe? Chambers resolutely shows humans at their best, though, and to go along with her is to share in some of that hope.

There is a melancholic note to the ending, and even though it comes to rest in a similar philosophical space as A Psalm for the Wild-Built. While maintaining the stance that existence is enough, it acknowledges that philosophical stances are not the same as lived realities, and Sibling Dex, despite their ardent and heartfelt belief that there is no need to earn comfort, that it should be infinitely available to anyone at any time, does not actually feel that they deserve rest. They alone must always be contributing. I sympathize with that incessant forward motion so much, and despite the lack of solution, it did feel like a resolution for Dex to admit that. Their struggle, ironically, is the thing that made me feel the most hopeful; it made me feel like I wasn’t alone.

Mosscap also shares hesitation about the next phase of their journey, though for different reasons. It has no trouble with valuing existence for existence’s sake, but it is troubled by what it means to add to that paradigm. What happens when it wants or needs things that are idiosyncratic to itself, things that may be outside its cultural paradigm? What if it doesn’t know what it wants, but still has feelings that don’t precisely align with its thoughts or philosophy? I sympathize there, too. Even in a utopia-adjacent world, sentience is difficult. Being alive is difficult.

But along with Dex and Mosscap, you will find reasons to believe it is worth it.

A charming addition to the Monk & Robot series! In this novella, Dex and Mosscap have left the wilds and are travelling among society, with Mosscap asking humanity: what do you need?

I enjoyed this very calming reading experience, especially the second to last chapter. It is very sweet watching the friendship between Dex and Mosscap grow.

In this mind-blowing sequel to the equally amazing A Psalm for the Wild-Built, Chambers has once again made me stop to think and question things I had never considered before.

I am relatively new to Becky Chamber’s work but so far I have loved everything I have been fortunate enough to read. Chamber’s has a way of writing that makes you feel exposed yet comforted in knowing that the thoughts and ideas that have been plaguing you are familiar to someone else as well.

In Crown-Shy, Mosscap and Dex are journeying through towns and farmlands on their way into the City. Mosscap is given its chance to ask the question it’s been holding on to and Dex is able to finally get the bath they so desperately desire.

There is more exploration of the question “What do people want?” and in turn that becomes what do people value and what is purpose.

I think, similar to others that have read this, that seeing Dex and their dealings with burnout in relation to our current world and own feelings and experiences with burnout that it hit the mark. Not even close to home, but a straight-up bullseye. Chambers managed to put into words, beautiful worlds all the things we’ve felt or are feeling.

This book is for anyone who has at any point in time felt lost, a little broken, or burnt-out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I’m not sure what it is about my timing and reading these books, but every damn time I end up unexpectedly crying. I write this review several months after having read it, but reader, the moment I finished this book I bought plane tickets to go home and see my family. These books are so unafraid to call you out and say, hey, you know that existential life question you’re not ready to tackle? Let’s address it head-on.

In Crown-Shy, Sibling Dex and Mosscap have returned from their foray into lands untouched by mankind for centuries, heading back into town as Dex returns to their role of tea monk and Mosscap ponders what humanity needs. We enter various villages, each with its own quirks and specializations, and start exploring the countryside of this post-post-industrial solarpunk world. Because we’ve now return to human settlements, this book really shows off Chambers’ creativity in developing this society. I loved seeing the different innovations that villages used, inspired by their locations, to make homes that respected the environment around them.

At its core, this story is about learning to understand, what do people want? What do people value and why do things have meaning? For Dex, the struggle is with burnout. The struggle of forcing oneself to keep producing when that act no longer gives satisfaction. I found this so relatable to my own experiences at the time of reading. Through Dex, Chambers emphasizes the idea of allowing oneself comfort. That comfort isn’t something to be won or achieved, but a simple need for a satisfying existence.

Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. This series is existential comfort at its finest. Chambers so perfectly combines a whimsical, gentle story of a human and robot living life with thought-provoking, tear-inducing, philosophical questions that leave the reader with both comfort and insight.

Finally, the continuation of Monk and Robot! I’ve been waiting for this ever since I finished A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Also, I’ve been flying through Becky Chambers’s Wayfarer books in recent weeks so I’m very happy to read more of her delightful writing. It’s like a warm comforting hug, or a nice cup of tea. In this installment, Dex brings Mosscap into the human world. Mosscap is intrigued by everything human it encounters on its search for the answer to what humanity needs, while Dex still struggles with their own search for purpose.

I still absolutely love this world and these characters and the way they interact. Mosscap and Dex’s friendship is really touching, and also sometimes hilarious. They also explore some interesting philosophical questions along their journey, though those conversations are sometimes a tangent that goes on a bit too long. Still, I found this novella absolutely delightful and I hope the author continues the series.

Representation: agender/nonbinary main characters, POC characters, polyamorous relationships

Hopepunk!

The opposite of grimdark, I suppose. The monk is Sibling Dex, a gender-neutral, wagon-travelling, tea service provider. The robot is Mosscap, fully sentient and determined to learn "what do humans need?" The pair slowly make their way to the Big City through woodland villages, riverside landings, oceanside homes on stilts, and Dex's family farm. Along the way, gentle lessons are learned about life, love, home, and even "what do robots need?''

A short, sweet hug of a book. Highly recommended for its restorative powers.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

This book is the prayer, and we are all, all of us who read this marvelous story, the crown-shy.

Crown shyness is a real-world phenomenon. About trees. Which is totally fitting for this story that features two people – even though one of them doesn’t refer to itself as “people” – who are exploring both friendship and all the myriad wonders of their world together.

Some trees spend their early years growing taller as fast as they can, reaching for the open sky and the sun. Then they start growing outwards, filling in branches and creating their part of the canopy of a forest. You’d think that those leaves and branches up in the canopy would overlap with the trees on all sides, creating a barrier between the sun in the sky and the ground far, far below.

But they don’t. Many species are “crown-shy”, meaning that they somehow know where their limits are and leave just a bit of space, a channel, between where their leaves end and the next tree’s leaves begin. So that the sun does reach the ground to give other denizens of the forest a chance to grow.

The communities in Panga are like that. They grow but so big and no further, so that each village has enough – actually more than enough – to sustain itself and its people. No one needs to want for more.

And that’s what’s at the heart of the Monk & Robot series so far. That question about what do beings want, either as individuals or as a community. What, for that matter, is there to want once society has somehow evolved past our current, endless hunger for more?

The tea-monk Sibling Dex and the robot Mosscap met in the first book in this terrific series, A Psalm for the Well-Built, because they were both asking variations of that question. Sibling Dex had pulled off the beaten path into the woods because they were in the throes of burnout and were asking themselves if what they were doing was what they wanted to do. If their endless journey was all there was or would be to their life.

While Mosscap was asking itself what had happened to the humans after the robots achieved self-awareness and walked away into the depths of the forest. What did humans need? And more specifically, was there anything that robots could do for them or with them?

The first book followed Dex’ journey deep into the wilderness, into Mosscap’s territory, to a remote location that was once sacred to their god and their service as a tea-monk. This second journey goes the other direction, as Dex and Mosscap head towards the City, home of the University and all its scholars, so that Mosscap can ask its questions of the people in Dex’ world who are supposed to have all the answers.

Only to discover that they’ve both already found their destination. And that what they truly need is each other.

Escape Rating A: If you’re looking for a story that will shed some light into the darkness, just as those crown-shy trees let light through to the forest floor, read A Psalm for the Wild-Built and A Prayer for the Crown-Shy. Because they are the purest of hopepunk, and we all need that right now.

This is a book that asks some pretty big questions, and then lets its two protagonists work out the answers for themselves as they travel through a lovely world that may have solved many of the problems we have today but still doesn’t have all the answers.

As Mosscap discovers, the value is in both asking and being asked the questions. The robot started out with “what do humans need?” The answers that it finds surprise it. In a world where striving for more for more’s own sake seems to have been eliminated, what humans need seems to boil down to one of two things.

Either someone needs help with a very specific concrete issue that either they haven’t gotten around to or for which there isn’t anyone local with the right skills or knowledge. Or, the answer is more existential, where the short version is often something like “purpose” or “fulfillment”. The kinds of things that a person needs to determine for themselves.

As does a robot. Mosscap discovers that it has no answer for itself to its own question. It doesn’t know – at least not yet – what it needs or what its fellow robots need. I sincerely hope that the series will continue, and that we’ll get to follow Mosscap and Dex as they hunt for their own answers.

In the end, this book is an antidote to so much that is happening right now in the world. It’s a walk through light and beautiful places, led by two beings who have learned that friendship is the most important journey of all.

Rarely do you read a science fiction/ fantasy book and feel like it was to short. I would have loved another 200+ pages of traveling with Sibling Dex and Mosscap in their tea wagon.

If inner-peace is achieved by being content with where you are right now, then this book is about peace. There's no real plot, ie major conflict and resolution that the protagonist must face, but more of a journey with the characters in their here-and-now. We learn a bit more about Sibling Dex and Mosscap, but it's no grand character arc. We're just happy to be with them where they are right now bringing a sense of peace to the reader.

And that's what Becky Chambers does for us with this book, she's giving us our own Sibling Dex tea service, sip by sip as we turn the pages.

Your journey with Sibling Dex and Mosscap is a thoughtful, quiet contemplation as we meet different societies in this divided land whose choices of how to their their lives are treated with the utmost kindness, care and respect by the author.

This has fast become a favourite series for me. So hopeful, beautiful, heartwarming, and humorous, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is one of those books, like its predecessor, that I will be thinking about long after I read the last page.

ARC provided from NetGalley:

I loved the first book in this series, the second book does not disappoint. Beautifully written and meditative.

Becky Chambers and her Monk & Robot series are an absolute delight. Mosscap and Dex are an unlikely pair that have made me laugh, sigh, and have nearly brought me to tears time and time again.