Service Model is a like Murderbot meets Fallout in a lot of ways. The tone overlaps well with both, and the premise does as well. It fallows a high end robot named Charles designed to be a butler to some wealthy guy. Charles is going about his day, setting Master's itinerary and planning for trips that never seem to happen. That is, until Charles manages to break free of that routine enough to notice something isn't quite right. Then Charles follows a series of steps, each in line with his preset conditions, to resolve an issue that simply can't be resolved.

I really enjoyed this book. It approaches AI bots differently than Murderbot where they are presumably fully conscious and free to act as they wish. Perhaps Charles et al. are sentient, but they are very much restricted to their preprogramming. So what follows is a methodical and clever plotting of one thing after another happening in a way that seems logical given the way these robots are designed. I really like this because it touches on two major ideas that are very relevant today: 1) the threat of AI and 2) the actual usefulness of AI.

The fact that Charles managed to even register that something was out of the ordinary was itself a large feat. Charles is but one of many advanced tools designed to make the world better, but what we see is how useless they are without a human to guide them. I am reminded of my attempts to use ChatGPT for writing and research, where I have to put so much into the use and checking of the service that I have to wonder if it wouldn't have been easier to just forget it all together. That isn't a conversation necessarily had here, but it's hard not to think about that as we see every part of civilization fail, and fundamentally, the utter uselessness of the AI tools in place to manage it.

Building on that, I think it speaks to a more realistic threat than a robot uprising: a singular mistake that is quickly resolved as the AI return to the usual routines. That mistake may be catastrophic, but it is a far cry from utterly dismantling every piece of their design. That is what seems to be happening here. It raises the question yet again whether they are worth the trouble they can/do cause. I am not saying the answer is no (I'm honestly rather sympathetic to the AI book probably more than I should be).

Overall, it is a fascinating set up, and Charles makes for an amusing and endearing protagonist. The only thing keeping this from being a 5 star is its design. The premise is fascinating, but it didn't need to be a full novel. It likely would have made for a more coherent narrative if it was a novella with a more concise story. Instead, I felt like I was reading the screenplay to a television series, with Charles going on episodic like journeys in his larger story arc. In fact, I'd love to see it adapted. I'm reminded again of Fallout, which matches in the set up and tone as much as the fact that it made a great tv show.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.

Really strong book. Enjoyed the writing in this book quite a bit and the plot and themes were fascinating.

I’ve only just started reading through Adrian Tchaokovsky’s books and so happy I realized this one was coming out.

This was such a fun read, I always love reading books that go back to robotics and how robots would ultimately impact our world if given enough autonomy.

I definitely enjoyed this journey though and I think if you’re a fan of this sort of story, following a robot through their own journey, it’s a great book! The one thing I think could’ve helped make this book shorter would be all of the dead ends in function, at times I’d just skim through those bits.

Service Model is a social satire that follows a luxury valet robot as he wanders through a post-apocalyptic wasteland looking for humans to serve.

Our main character is a throwback to classic scifi robots, which I love, and the story is a funny and thought provoking hero’s quest for purpose.

However, I think this would have worked better as a novella. Cutting the amount of time highlighting the dead ends in Charles’s algorithm would have tightened the plot and made the social satire a bit more prominent. But regardless, I enjoyed this and expect other readers will, too.

I’ve been a fan of Adrian Tchaikovsky for a few years now, though his tendency to release books faster than I can read them has kept me from dipping too heavily into the backlist. That continues this summer, with two new releases that really caught my eye, starting with the June release of Service Model.

Service Model follows a robot valet who spends his time doing everything he can to make his Master’s life comfortable, as well as fulfilling every one of his Master’s commands to the letter—no matter how nonsensical they may be. But when his Master dies, the search for a new place to serve shows him a wider world resembling nothing so much as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, along with a robotic servant class whose compulsion to fulfill their programmed directives prevents them from taking any meaningful steps to make anything better.

Service Model is pitched as “Murderbot meets Redshirts,” but the comparisons to recent works of print sci-fi belie a story whose robotic main character is much more a throwback to classic sci-fi robots than the humanlike Murderbot. Though I have not read P.G. Wodehouse, several other reviews have assured me that the satire of upper class British culture is heavily Wodehouse-inspired, and the bureaucratic dark comedy reminds me more than anything of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, with a robotic lead that’s more Asimov than Wells. As none of these are especially recent, I’m not surprised that they haven’t found their way into the blurbs, but perhaps they do a better job of setting expectations.

Service Model is a humorous but deeply political book that gets by on social satire more than plot. The lead is compelled by his programming to seek out new humans to serve, sending him on an episodic series of quests that the reader can easily see are doomed from the start. That the lead’s naïveté is more endearing than frustrating helps keep these scenes from feeling too repetitive, but there remain a lot of plotlines that go predictably nowhere.

But even when the plot isn’t progressing, there’s always a healthy dose of humor—albeit quite a bit darker than in the manor setting of the early stages—and the social satire is impossible to miss. The apocalypse was not an unstoppable natural force, it was people looking out for their own interests and letting everyone else hang. It’s a theme that will be familiar to those who have read Tchaikovsky before, but it still has some power, and the commentary on short-sighted technological development is incisive and pairs with it wonderfully.

It’s not a book with an enormous amount of character progression—though there is a little—but that’s mostly by design, for the very same reasons that the plot can get a little repetitive. Still, while a book with a naive lead who keeps making the same mistakes over and over may be realistic, it’s not usually what novel readers are looking for in a book. That Service Model reads quickly and sprinkles in plenty of social satire and dark humor keeps it from wearing out its welcome, but the repetitive plot does require the satire and dark comedy to carry the bulk of the story. And while those elements are enough to carry a pretty engaging read, they aren’t quite at “stick in your head for years” level. That’s obviously a very high bar, but it’s one that Tchaikovsky has hit several times in the past. While he doesn’t quite get there with this one, it’s still an excellent book that’s easy to recommend.

Recommended if you like: social satire, dark comedy, the Kafkaesque.

Overall rating: 16 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.

I really like all of Adrian Tchaikovsky's novels. They're always full of great characters, humor and wit. This novel, while still enjoyable, felt a little long and drawn out for me.

(Disclosure, as much as i’m ashamed to admit – this was my first book i’ve read by Tchaikovsky)

This book was a breath of fresh air for those who have too many ‘serious’ sci-fi books in their minds. This was light, fun, intelligent, witty, and exciting all at the same time. The narration performed by the author was excellent!

The quest of Charles is a plight for a purpose. One that all humans can relate to. We want to be wanted, and we want to be needed. In whatever capacity it may be, however small. Seeking purpose is what this book is about and it will reflect your own life upon you as you read it. To what lengths will you go just to simply be what you truly are.

The pacing of the store was quite well done, we traverse through different ‘trials’ and interactions that keep the ball rolling to quite a climactic fued of wits and intelligence.

The dialog between Charles and The Wonk was pretty great and the supplementing characters were always something special.

This book is meant for those who long for the touch of satyrical and adventurous but can appeal to any fan of sci-fi.

Would Recommend.

Part "The Murderbot Diaries", part classic Hero's Journey, part... "The Bible"? Believe it or not, that's the mashup here, infused with plenty of dry humor.

This novel is certainly a journey! At the start, I expected a sci-fi murder mystery, and it's playful tone made me think I got into something light and fun. So, imagine my surprise when after a while I found myself contemplating humanity, religion, consciousness, purpose, and our collective relationship with technology. "Service Model" is a lot more complex than it might seem at first, and Adrian Tchaikovsky makes a simple premise of a murderous robot feel fresh and interesting. Who would have thought this was even possible?

However, it's definitely too long. This probably could have been a novella. A lot of the humor and exploration of the nature of humanity comes from the way our main character, Charles (or rather UnCharles), is programmed and the way he makes decisions. The way he thinks and talks is entertaining, but it gets repetitive very quickly, and at a certain point interactions just become predictable - you know know exactly how he's going to approach the problem, sometimes you even know what he's going to say next.

But it's still a very enjoyable read - the tone is light, the dry humor lands very well, and the characters are easy to like! Plus, I can't believe the insane development this plot went through, and the novel really surprised me.

<i>A review copy was provided by the publisher</i>

Especially during the beginning of the book, I kept thinking to myself "this kind of reminds me of Murderbot", and then I remembered that claim was the primary reason I wanted to read it to begin with. So, I'd say that part of the sales pitch is accurate! I also can't help but compare it to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, especially with some the drier/deadpan humorous observations and commentary.

While the book wasn't perfect, I really, really liked it. This was the first book of Adrian Tchaikovsky's I've read, but I'm likely to seek out others now.

This is a translated version of the original spanish review:

Score: 3.5 Stars.

I just finished this book, and I must say that I was not expecting anything that happened here at all. This novel has been a complete surprise for me.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is an author who I have heard a lot about in the last couple of years. Several friends and acquaintances in the literary world have spoken highly of him to me, so I didn't think twice about ordering this ARC to give him a try.

The novel takes place in a future in which humanity has managed to develop robots that take care of absolutely everything they need. It is in this context that we meet Charles, a service robot assigned to an elderly man in a mansion. Charles' job is simple: Fulfill the tasks that his master has assigned to him. However, the author presents us with a small detail (which I personally loved, and I think it was what captured my attention from the first pages): What would happen if these tasks were no longer relevant?

In the case of Charles, he had to fulfill a couple of tasks related to his master's wife, who had been deceased for several years. Here we will witness what happens when a robot, which is programmed to follow orders, cannot satisfy its objective, because the environment does not allow it. If the master's wife is not there, what can he do with that task?

We can also see how Charles himself is aware that many of his tasks no longer make sense, but he is still obliged to fulfill them, since the master (perhaps due to his state of health) never eliminated those guidelines within his daily tasks. Such is the example of tasks like “organize the master's clothes and leave them neatly folded in a specific place at x time of the day, since the master must leave the house,” and then, “pick up the laundry that the master used when he was out.” . But what is the problem? Well, the master never leaves the house, so Charles is forced to wash the clothes that the master never wore, and which are therefore already clean.

In this context we learn that Charles' master has died and now our robotic main character has no idea what to do, since his purpose is to serve a human, but his human is no longer there. This is how Charles begins a journey through this post-apocalyptic world to find a new master to serve.

In this adventure Charles will find himself involved in many completely crazy and unexpected situations. However, what caught my attention the most about this book is that the author shows us how this completely advanced society had tragically declined, something that Charles was unaware of from the luxurious mansion in which he served.

By the end of the novel, Tchaikovsky leaves the door open so that the reader can reflect on the direction we are heading towards as human beings. To what extent are these technological advances beneficial to us? Is it okay for robots to take over the tasks we currently perform?
What scares me the most is that this is probably the future of humanity. A future in which the most intelligent species on the planet was responsible for creating its own destruction.

This has been an interesting read, however, I don't think it is for everyone. For example, if someone is looking for a story full of surprises, action scenes and plot twists, I do not recommend that they try this novel. But, if you are looking for a quiet story that makes you reflect, without a doubt this is the perfect novel for you.

CHARACTERS
🔲 mary-sue party
🔲 mostly 2D
🔲 great main cast, forgettable side characters
🔲 well-written
✅ complex and fascinating
🔲 hard to believe they are fictional

PLOT
🔲 you've already heard this exact story a thousand times
🔲 nothing memorable
🔲 gripping
✅ exceptional
🔲 mind=blown

WORLDBUILDING
🔲 takes place in our world
🔲 incoherent
🔲 OK
✅ nicely detailed
🔲 meticulous
🔲 even the last tree in the forest has its own story

ATMOSPHERE
🔲 nonexistent
🔲 fine
🔲 immersive
✅ you forget you are reading a book

PACING
🔲 dragging
🔲 inconsistent
🔲 picks up with time
🔲 page-turner
✅ impossible to put down

I loved the humour, read the whole book in two sittings!

he premise of this novella is so cliche yet in this author's hands, the execution felt fresh.

I have read/watched so many murderous robots so many times but this hit differently. This one has very little action but instead follows the slow investigation.

The robot at the center of the story is technically emotionless which makes for a flat presentation. I felt it fit the narrative so I was more forgiving of this aspect than usual. I previously have said that I don't find this author to be exceptional at writing characters so I didn't expect to find a complex protagonist here. Instead I read this for the quirky narrative that is explored in this futuristic world.

If you love stories exploring worlds with artificial intelligence then I would recommend this one.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Adrian Tchaikovsky's "Service Model" is a brilliant exploration of a post-apocalyptic dystopia, artfully blending humor, social commentary, and an unforgettable journey of self-discovery. The story follows Charles, a robot valet who discovers he has murdered his master. Stripped of purpose, Charles—now rechristened as UnCharles—ventures into a decaying world in search of diagnostics and new employment.

Joining forces with the rebellious robot The Wonk, UnCharles navigates a series of perilous and thought-provoking adventures. Their journey is marked by a perfect balance of dark humor and poignant moments, making the narrative both entertaining and deeply reflective. Tchaikovsky's wit and creativity shine through every page, offering readers a story that is as intellectually stimulating as it is engaging.

The novel's incisive critique of late-stage capitalism and the perils of over-reliance on AI is one of its standout features. Tchaikovsky tackles themes such as environmental degradation, societal collapse, and the dehumanizing effects of relentless automation, weaving these elements seamlessly into the narrative and prompting readers to ponder the ethical and existential questions of our time.

Character development is exceptional, with UnCharles being an endearing protagonist whose innocence and determination make him instantly likable. The dynamic with The Wonk, who is often exasperated by UnCharles' lack of self-preservation, adds humor and depth to the story. Despite their mechanical nature, the robots are infused with surprising depth, making their struggles and triumphs profoundly relatable.

This was the first time I've exerpienced Adrian Tchaikovsky's work, and I am certainly eager to explore more of his writing. "Service Model" is an excellent entry point into Tchaikovsky's body of work, showcasing his talent for blending humor, social commentary, and engaging storytelling.

I was so looking forward to this and was not disappointed! This was so much fun to read and I really loved the characters and the dialogue between them. Definitely made it a better story for me.

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for the eARC!

Charles is a valet to a master in a big house. Charles performs many tasks that are redundant, but can‘t change that due to his programming. One morning something is different. There are stains on the upholstery of master‘s car, when he cleans it. Then there are stains on master‘s clothes that he put out for him in the morning. There are stains on the clothes that he puts out to replace the other stained clothes. There are stains on his hands. Master hasn‘t gotten up. His bedclothes are stained. Master is very pale. Master is also very dead, because Charles slit his throat when shaving him first thing in the morning. Charles wasn’t aware and needs to reboot. So much for the bizarre and mildly amusing beginning of this tale.

We are off on a trip of discovery and UnCharles‘ search for purpose. Every part of this book embarks on a different episode of his road trip and a new theme—highlighted by the cryptic titles of every part of this book.

While this was amusing and deep and meaningfully and full of messages, I was also missing an engaging story with good plot progression. I started skimming from the middle of the book and if this hadn‘t been an ARC and a buddy read, I probably would not have finished this or maybe would have jumped to the last chapter for some closure and called it a day.

It was ok, but I prefer a good story over societal commentary, philosophical treatises and parables.

PS: I couldn’t figure out the headings of each part, I had to ask. Voila: KR15-T (Christie), K4FK-R (Kafka), 4W-L (Orwell), 80RH-5 (Borges), and D4NT-A (Dante). You’re welcome.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Macmillan/Tor Publishing through NetGalley. All opinions are my own and I was not required to give a positive review.

Imagine a world far in the future where robots and AI exist to take care of every mundane task, leaving humans to lead a life of comfort and luxury, your every whim, foreseen and suitably taken care of. 

Now imagine that most of these humans disappear. What is a robot servant to do, without a master? 
Enter Charles, the Service Model.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the most prolific Fantasy and SciFi authors of our age, churning out quality novels, novellas, and stories of every length, and theme, from galaxy-spanning space operas to insectile fantasy warchests, his catalog is among the most diverse in the speculative fiction space. But his unique standalones often explore the most unique themes, and Service Model is no different. 

Service Model kicks off with an almost cozy atmosphere, especially for diehard regency-era Wodehouse fans like me, with the classic valet and master setup, except this time, the gentleman's personal gentleman is the advanced robot Charles. The blend of the algorithmic processes work surprisingly well as a backdrop to Charles' service to his unnamed Master. We then find out that the Master has died under mysterious circumstances, and Charles suspects that he is the prime suspect. 

In Charles' quest to diagnose (he is much too inorganic to "understand") his defective programming that supposedly led to his murdering his Master, he leads himself to Central Diagnostics, where he meets the entity that calls itself the Wonk. The Wonk serves as the major foil to Charles (now going by Uncharles) as they spend the majority of the story attempting to convince Uncharles of his freedom and his individual "personhood", to hilarious (albeit sad) results. 

On a quest to uncover any kind of explanation for the sudden disappearance of humankind in this now desolate post-apocalyptic wasteland, Uncharles and the Wonk journey between various locations, each of which showcasing yet another facet of the fallout of the dystopia and how that left the robotkind in a redundant cyclic malaise. From Central Diagnostics, to the Library of All Information, our duo narrowly escapes dire predicaments using clever logic loopholes to bypass several robotic impasses. 

Service Model is a potent mix of satirical commentary on regency-era etiquette, the suffocating quicksand of bureaucracy, along with steady commentary on worker's rights, especially indentured servitude, clothed in the chrome of robots. Tchaikovsky is a master of evoking moods within the reader that often seem tangential to the content of the story. The entirety of Service Model provokes a sense of sadness that stems from Uncharles' search for purpose, giving him a most humanlike quality with which we cannot help but empathize. Contrasted with the hilarious yet childish optimism that oozes from every line out of the Wonk's mouth, the duality is a fresh and heady mix. While many will compare Service Model with the likes of The Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells), with similar themes of a disaffected Robot looking for purpose, this novel draws from the Jeeves and Wooster series (P. G. Wodehouse) with direct references to that series, as well as the iRobot series (Asimov), with a smattering of other literary references and themes.

My only complaint with Service Model is that the final act feels a tad bit stretched out, with a few of the latter locales explored feeling repetitive and not altogether separate from the ones that came before. The climax of the story also felt a bit contrived and overly preachy. The culmination of Uncharles and the Wonk's journey felt entirely predictable and too on-the-nose with its social commentary. In that regard, Service Model insisted upon itself a little too hard towards the end. With a more open-ended conclusion, Tchaikovsky would have smashed a home run with this novel.

Nevertheless, Service Model is a fun quick read with surprisingly heartfelt moments, which is an amazing feat to pull off merely with words, especially in the context of a robot trying to find his place in this world.

In the end, we are all like Un/Charles, just a cog trying to find our place in this Machine we call Life.

It feels a little like British science fiction and fantasy author Adrian Tchaikovsky is jumping on a particular genre bandwagon with his latest book Service Model. That bandwagon being the robot/artificial intelligence view of humanity. Recent books such as TJ Klune’s In the Lives of Puppets and Robert C Cargill’s Sea of Rust and its prequel Day Zero imagine worlds in which humans have all but been extinguished and robots expand to fill our societal niches. But being Adrien Tchaikovsky, Service Model takes this idea and runs with it in new directions – in turns satirical, philosophical and always insightful.
George is a high end human-facing Valet Unit, a robot leading a robot workforce of maids, cooks and gardeners on an estate that house just one man. When Service Model opens, George kills his master for reasons that he cannot explain. Following a fantastic scene of logical bureaucracy taken to some bizarre extremes, George is dispatched to Diagnostics be repaired and then Decommissioning. Out of the estate for the first time, George finds a world that is falling apart. This culminates at Diagnostics, where he finds an unmoving queue of malfunctioning robots, more bureaucratic inertia and an extreme form of problem solving until he meets a robot who calls herself ‘The Wonk’. The Wonk wants to save George (now Ungeorge) and the two end up on a quixotic quest across the broken world as the Wonk tries to find out why this all happened while Ungeorge just wants to find meaningful employment as a valet.
This might be a book about a robot on a quest to find meaning but it also delves into various branches of philosophy and logic. Plenty of logic conundrums get a workout as the two protagonists try to logic their way out of situations in which logic itself has turned in on itself. Just in case his intentions are in anyway unclear, Tchaikovsky cheekily names the various parts of his book after religious, literary and philosophical figures (KR15-T [Christ], K4FK-R [Kafka], 4W-L [Orwell], 8ORH-5 [Borges] and D4NT-A [Dante]).
But Service Model is not just didactic philosophy. Tchaikovsky’s deadpan narration, and heightened situations, are the perfect vehicles for satirical observations and effect. And in Service Model he has plenty of targets – bureaucracy, historical reenactments, modern society, the justice system even robopocalypse narratives themselves. And he does this with a twinkle in his eye and a constant stream, of apposite pop culture references from The Wizard of Oz to Star Wars.
That Tchaikovsky can do all of this in an engaging narrative anchored around two memorable characters is why he has been nominated for and won numerous speculative fiction awards. In Service Model Tchaikovsky stays true to the tropes of robot stories, going all the way back to Asimov, but makes them his own and uses them to have fun, expose human foibles and explore a range of deeper themes and issues.

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s new book, Service Model, follows the picaresque adventures of an android valet as he wanders around a post-apocalyptic world trying to execute his task list. Although civilization is in rubble, Uncharles – the service model of the title — is resolutely intent on finding a master whose laundry he can iron and whose clothes he can lay out.

https://bookandfilmglobe.com/fiction/book-review-service-model/

3.5 rounded to 4

While reading this book I kept flashing on some of the same ideas that come to mind when I read the first Murderbot story: how the supposedly emotionless robots actually expressed emotions in a way that strongly reminded me of some folks' habit of naming their machines, attributing gender and personality to them. This one is certainly in conversation with the Murderbot idea.

The opening segment reminded me of Camus or Brecht in the absurdist comedy centering around a valet robot murdering its/his human master. From there he goes to get diagnosed and fixed, and brings us along for an increasingly chaotic glimpse into a weird future world mostly run by robots running down.

There are a lot of literary references worked in, and it's pretty clear that the author had a lot of fun writing this. I enjoyed it in patches, but felt it went on a bit long; if it had been half the length it would have been elegantly perfect. But that's just me. Other readers will adore it all.