Adrian Tchaikovsky is one of the most accomplished science fiction writers of the past two decades. He is also remarkably prolific, having published well over thirty hefty novels, together with many shorter works, in the years since 2008. Tchaikovsky also has a great range. He seems reluctant to repeat himself, and has instead explored a wide variety of subgenres in science fiction and fantasy: everything from novels of uplifted animal intelligence (the Children trilogy), to the dying-Earth subgenre (Cage of Souls), to metaphysical space opera (the Final Architecture trilogy), to alternative visions of evolution (The Doors of Eden), to science fantasy with a dollop of horror (Walking to Aldebaran).

Tchaikovsky’s latest novel, Service Model, might be characterized as robot cyberfiction. It recounts the story of a robot’s picaresque adventures in a ruined, posthuman world. “Charles”, as the robot is initially called, initially serves as a valet to a rich man, and is programmed to anticipate his every wish, and to pamper him to a degree far exceeding what even the richest actual human beings today are able to get their servants to do. Charles is content in his position, even though his idle, wealthy employer is clearly a degenerate scumbag (I am using this phrase, which does not appear in the actual text of the novel, in the precise sense in which it is defined by the Urban DIctionary: “a person whose behaviour and attitude holds back the progress of the human race while eroding social solidarity”).

Only one day, without realizing it, Charles slashes his master’s throat while in process of shaving him. With no master left to serve, Clarles has to leave. In addition, since the name “Charles” was only imposed as a feature of his initial position, once that position is gone, so is the name. For the rest of the novel, and following a suggestion from somebody else, the robot calls himself Uncharles instead. (I am only using he/him pronouns here because of the initial name “Charles”; the robot shows no particularly gendered characteristics one way or the other).

Most of the book narrates Uncharles’ search for another source of employment; and secondarily in order to find out why he murdered his employer, since he cannot discover any reasons to have done so. He sees himself as a mechanism, having tasks to perform, but without anything of the order of needs, desires, and emotions, such as human beings might feel. Uncharles seeks a new job, not for monetary reasons — he has no physical needs as long as he can be recharged from sunlight — but because he still feels a strong impulse to do the sort of work for which he was initially programmed: to be the enthusiastic helper of a living human being. The problem is that the world has been largely destroyed. Pretty much everything has been reduced to debris. The wasteland is heavily populated with robots set adrift, much as Uncharles himself is. Human beings have almost gone extinct; for the most part, the only surviving ones are relegated to hellish situations of continual pain and punishment.

For most of the volume, Uncharles passes through a series of situations that are unattractive for him, and evidently satirical from the point of view of the author and of us as readers. Thinking the murder of his employer results from some sort of mechanical defect, Uncharles goes to a robot repair center that is entirely dysfunctional (which is evidently for the best since its only form of “repair” for broken robots is to terminate them and scavenge their physical remains for spare parts). Uncharles then goes to a sort of farm or factory where the few surviving human beings are compelled endlessly to re-enact their supposed pre-robotic folkways (consisting in straightened living situations, hellish commutes, and meaningless and unending factory labor, though they do not actually produce anything). Then there is a library where all human knowledge is transcribed into 1s and 0s and then erased, with the original sources (books, movies, etc.) also being physically destroyed. After that, there’s an enormous junkyard where robot armies continually battle one another for no discernible reason. And so on. These scenarios are referenced to famous modernist authors, such as Kafka (the bureaucracy of the repair facilities), Orwell (the ceaseless surveillance of the people forced to reenact the most oppressive circumstances of their past lives), and Borges (the library) — though this is a joke only for the readers, as it is something the robots themselves remain unaware of.

Uncharles is accompanied on his voyages by another figure known as The Wonk (who turns out to be a human woman in robot disguise — I don’t feel like I am giving away a spoiler here, because the reader realizes that this in the case, long before Uncharles is officially informed of it). She plays Sancho Panza to Uncharles’ Don Quixote, with her comments continually undermining his delusions about his tasks and about the structure of society. She also keeps noting to Uncharles that, in contrast to his original programming, he has developed something like free will. This is an observation that he continually denies, but that readers in the long run judge to be true.

The question of human freedom or flexibility versus robot programming and external determination is also continually raised in the novel’s own language. A close third-person narration is continually describing Uncharles’ reactions to various things by comparing them to human emotional responses, while at the same time disavowing these comparisons by saying things like: Uncharles was acting very much like a person getting angry, though of course as a robot he didn’t feel anger or any other emotions. The novel gets a considerable degree of this power from this sly use of rhetoric, as well as from the evidently satirical and exaggerated characterizations of all the predicaments within which Uncharles finds himself.

In short, Service Model is a brilliant novel, equal in power to many of Tchaikovsky’s other works, but unique among those works in its particular strategies and angles of approach. Its ultimate impact is to blur the distinction between internally-generated and externally-imposed actions and responses, as between what philosophers call dispositions and what common sense refers to as feelings. And therefore it also erodes (even as it overtly affirms) differences between natural and artificial intelligence. This is both the source of the considerable pleasure I took in reading the novel, and the sign of its being a deep philosophical thought-experiment and argument in its own right.

Published by Tordotcom on June 4, 2024

Service Model is an amusing story of a robot’s search for purpose. There has been an apocalypse (or a series of apocalyptic events) but it wasn’t caused by a robot revolution. In fact, quite the opposite. Since the cause of civilization’s collapse is the point of the novel, I won’t reveal it, but I will say that Adrian Tchaikovsky furthers the grand tradition of exploring big ideas through science fiction.

Some humans have survived the end of civilization, but they are outnumbered by robots who follow their programming, carrying on with tasks that have become meaningless. They are increasingly starting to glitch, the end of civilization having had “a negative impact on scheduled updates.” They wander in circles, freeze in place when their memories are full, haul freight back and forth that never gets unloaded. Robots are lining up at repair centers for maintenance that will never be scheduled. Being dutiful robots, they stand in line until they stop functioning altogether.

The story’s protagonist is Charles, a valet robot who works in a manor for a wealthy recluse. Since his master no longer entertains or goes out, Charles maintains a social calendar that is empty and lays out clothing that is never worn. This does not bother Charles, who is content in his performance of useless tasks. Serving a human is all he wants to do, even if the service has no value.

One day, while Charles is shaving his master, he discovers that his master’s throat has been cut. Charles endeavors to go about his day — even reasoning that taking his dead master for a drive might cheer him up — before the majordomo that operates the house calls a robot doctor and a robot cop. Hilarity ensues.

Charles realizes he might have a fault that will require diagnostic intervention but hopes he won’t be sent into retirement. “Given the considerable investment in domestic service that Charles represented, surely he should be allowed to murder three, or even five people before being deemed irreparably unfit for service.”

The plot follows Charles as he searches for another human to serve. He makes his way to Diagnostics, where he hopes a software adjustment will make further murders improbable. He meets a girl who, by virtue of her attire, he mistakes for a robot. She introduces herself as The Wonk and tries to convince him that he has acquired the Protagonist Virus and is now self-aware and autonomous. Charles is certain he is neither of those.

Diagnostics is overcrowded with robots who will never be fixed, so Charles is sent to Data Compression, where it seems his fate is to be recycled. Fortuitous circumstances cause Charles to visit the Library, where all human knowledge is being stored, albeit in a way that makes more sense to robots than to humans. He later encounters a group of humans who would be at home in a Mad Max movie. In the last stop of his journey, Charles visits God.

While Service Model tells a funny story, Tchaikovsky makes some serious points. To preserve humanity’s past, humans held captive in the Library make a long circular commute to engage in meaningless make-work at workplaces next to their residences. Robots were supposed to make manual labor unnecessary, but how can humans be valued in the eyes of others if they don’t work? The novel asks whether the employment of laborers is any different from ownership of robots. When a robot stops being productive, society discards it. Are humans any different? “Individual value is tied to production, and everyone who’s idle is a parasite scrounging off the state.” The homeless are treated no better than obsolete robots.

Tchaikovsky also has an interesting take on justice. How would one program a robot to mete out justice? In the end, wouldn’t a rational robot determine that everyone is guilty of something and that humans all deserve to be punished? The notion that it’s better to punish the innocent than to allow the guilty to get away with crime is antithetical to American and British values, but common enough among people who accept the authoritarian promise to protect them from imagined threats. And who would make a better authoritarian than a robot?

The story is ultimately about Charles’ search for purpose. Charles appears to frustrate The Wonk at every turn by insisting that his purpose is to serve because that is how he was programmed. And if serving others makes Charles feel fulfilled (a possibility Charles would never articulate because he does not “feel” anything), perhaps service is his purpose. Perhaps humans also have a predetermined purpose that requires no search. Perhaps we are all wired in a particular way and Charles is simply being more honest than humans who believe they can find a purpose through religion or philosophy. Yet the ending suggests that Charles might eventually work around his programming and determine his own purpose, one his programmer did not envision.

This is the first novel of Tchaikovsky’s I’ve read that is primarily a comedy. I’ve enjoyed his space opera and fantasy, but he is just as successful at humor. Tchaikovsky borrows ideas from Star Trek, Borges, A Canticle for Liebowitz, and the Wizard of Oz (among other sources), then milks them for their comedic potential. The story can be read as a cautionary tale about the potential causes of humanity’s destruction, but the end of civilization has never been funnier.

RECOMMENDED

Tchaikovsky is one of my favorite authors, and one of the things I like about him most is his versatility. His books feel so different, and this is no exception. It has more sardonic humor than other Tchaikovsky books that I've read, while having a very straight laced but fun protagonist in Not-Charles (you'll see).

The book has been compared a lot to Murderbot and I understand why on the surface but I think they are quite different. Tchaikovsky is much more interested in the concept of free will and consciousness, as well as exploring what might happen if we get automated to levels of intense comfort.

This is not one of my top favorite Tchaikovsky books, but it was very enjoyable and I particularly liked the ending. Also, Adrian does the audiobook and he does a great job!

8.5/10

This was such an interesting, funny and thought provoking book. I loved the Robot Valet main character, he was so endearing and I just really enjoyed reading about his journey to finding his purpose. There are so many humorous parts in this as well as some really good introspection on humanity and society as it is now and in our imagined future. I really enjoyed this book and will be looking into reading more by this author as I have now enjoyed both books I read by him.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for granting me access to an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is, in my opinion, one of the best science fiction writers out there today. His latest provides further confirmation of my opinion of the man and his works.

The protagonist here is a robotic valet, living and working on the estate of his human master with a few dozen other robot servants. He discovers one day that his master is dead - oddly, on reviewing his logs, the valet himself slit his throat during his morning shave. Strange, in that there’s no decision tree leading to the action, but regardless his tasks are clear and must be completed.

After a period of some Weekend at Bernie’s kind of shenanigans - the master’s orders didn’t include any contingency like “don’t bother if I’m dead,” so he still needs to be dressed, his food prepared, etc - the valet and other robot services conclude that the (robotic) doctor must be called in, and the (robotic) police must be informed that the valet has murdered their master. The valet is eventually sent off to Diagnostics to figure out what went wrong with him and from there, hopefully, to another master who won’t object to his negligible, but admittedly non-zero, history of murder.

Unfortunately the world has fallen apart. The manors adjacent to his master’s are all in various stages of abandonment and decay. There’s precious little sign of humans, and the robots that the valet encounters are mostly stuck in loops, following orders no longer valid but without any authority to do anything else.

This book is both incredibly bleak and incredibly funny - though you would need a particular taste for black humor to find it so. It’s a not-terribly-subtle critique of late stage capitalism, basically. It reminded me of Firewalkers, another book of Tchaikovsky’s (though of course late stage capitalism and climate change are closely connected).

The promise of increased automation has always been increased leisure time, which hasn’t happened as much as it should for numerous reasons. We often hear about people whose jobs are being left behind by a society that no longer needs them. In American politics, coal miners are often brought up, but there’s many more.Service Model speaks to this kind of problem, but on a more fundamental level. We, as a society, define one’s worth to society based on one’s productivity. It’s not something we really ever admit, but it underpins everything. What happens if and when automation progresses to the point where there’s not enough productivity to go around? Will we figure out a way to redefine how we value individuals as a society, or will the haves simply pull the ladder up behind themselves, congratulate themselves on their success and their virtue (each one being axiomatic proof of the other), and tell the have-nots to pull themselves up by the bootstraps?

I think we all know which one is more likely. Tchaikovsky agrees. Hence the “bleak” I mentioned above.

Despite the bleakness, it does end on a hopeful note. And I was laughing, sometimes to tears, the entire time I was reading this. Tchaikovsky is a genius.

Started off a bit slow and it was hard to see it pulling off the concept for a full book (suffers a bit from comparison with the novella format of the Murderbot series in that regard), but it found its footing once it shed its original setting and ended up being a funny and thought-provoking take on consciousness. And I thought it stuck the landing quite well, which, not having read this author before, I wasn’t sure it could pull off.

The cover doesn’t do this book any favors, FWIW. That, and the generic title, don’t do much in conveying the unique mix of droll perspective, near-slapstick vignettes, and thoughtful/funny speculation on the idea of humans self-owning at scale, and what we would leave in (at?) our wake.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tor, and the author, Adrian Tchaikovsky, for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

I'm sure I'm not the only person drawn to this book by mentions of MurderBot. Came for the MurderBot, stayed for UnCharles. I mean, let's be honest, UnCharles is no MurderBot. UnCharles is a robot who is possibly (but, given the choice, would say is NOT) self-aware. There is no hacked governor module here. UnCharles is more perturbed by the disruption to his logical thought processes than almost anything else. But! I digress.

Because the reader is tagging along with UnCharles, it isn't immediately apparent just how catastrophically wrong things are, not just in UnCharles' cozy manor house but in the world in general. UnCharles' descent from relative safety into all-hell-breaks-loose reminded me a little bit of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. I don't even HAVE an "allegory" shelf in GoodReads, but if I did, this book would be its ne plus ultra. Kudos to the author for (A) trying something so ambitious and (B) having such a high opinion of modern readers as to expect many of them to fully grasp it. The chapter headings, as fellow reader/reviewer Nataliya points out, are indicative of their influences: KR15-T (Christie), K4FK-R (Kafka), 4W-L (Orwell), 80RH-5 (Borges), and D4NT-A (Dante). I absolutely picked up on Christie, Orwell, and Dante on my own, but I will admit, I have not yet read any Kafka or Borges and so some of the impact was undoubtedly lost on me.

Once I managed my expectations (not everything can be MurderBot!) I enjoyed this a lot. Definitely a change of pace from the usual. I'm seeing in other reviews that Tchaikovsky is an accomplished writer of the novella form, so I might try a few of those next.

I am a relative newcomer to the work of Adrian Tchaikovsky. I first picked up Walking to Aldebaran a few months ago after a recommendation on Bluesky and I loved it, so I leapt at the opportunity to get an early copy of his latest novel, Service Model.

Service Model introduces readers to Charles, a robot valet working in a manor up until the untimely death of his master. Charles is an incredibly skilled robot, programmed to handle all aspects of coordinating with House, the majordomo system of the manor. This facilitates any and all of the Master’s needs. Clothing selection? Check. Travel plans? Check. Shave? Check. One day, however, Charles goes a bit far. Master is unable to give new orders to Charles or House or any of the other servants, and Charles finds that an odd bit of staining is appearing on everything he’s touched in the time since he last shaved Master.

Soon, an investigation is underway, and Charles is ejected from the Manor into the wider world. Unfortunately for him, the outer world is a largely uninhabited wasteland. Fortunately, he has one more thing in his task queue. He sets off to have his malfunctions examined by a diagnostician. So begins his trek across the post-apocalyptic landscape in search of answers and a new Master to serve.

Service Model almost immediately made me think of Douglas Adams, and I can only attempt to describe the protagonist as a mashup of Marvin the Paranoid Android with Wadsworth, the butler from Clue. Our deteriorating valet needs to find out why he acted the way he did as well as what happened to all of the humans. Along the way, he gets into increasingly philosophical discussions about humanity or the lack thereof, with a growing self-awareness. The journey is more important than the destination, after all, and an unexpected companion quickly adds complications to both Charles’ sense of self and his quest.

I absolutely loved reading this book. It’s a phenomenal wandering hero narrative, with elements of allegory reminiscent of The Pilgrim’s Progress. I’m very grateful to Tor Publishing and NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for a fair review. Service Model is out today.

This review originally appeared here: https://swordsoftheancients.com/2024/06/04/service-model-a-review/

Charles is a high-end, human-facing valet robot model whose life is in a bit of a rut. He's not programmed to feel dissatisfaction, but he recognizes something is off. When he discovers his master has been murdered, he also realizes he is the murderer and that he had no motive. A hilarious farce ensues, but this comedy mostly ends when he is dismissed to seek out Central Diagnostics. From the moment he leaves the mansion, he enters a wasteland Wizard of Oz-type journey full of odd and tragic characters trying to recreate society.

When he meets The Wonk, he ends up on a quest to find employment again, but this quest leads him into more and more dangerous territory and situations. Each of these encounters is a mirror on an aspect of our current culture. Charles and The Wonk part and meet several times as they both go on their jaunts of self-realization, and this slow development of their friendship is an endearing part of the book.

I appreciated the ability of Tchaikovsky to dangle the hook of the murder throughout the entirety of the book. I don't know that I'd have lasted through some of the later episodes of the quest without it. They were all masterfully written and spot-on in their commentary, but I found them growing slightly tedious and lacking the balancing humor that gentled most of the earlier scenes. They made me sad because they were, well, sad. It's hard to write about an apocalypse without ending up sad, I suppose. It's a timely message--especially in light of the AI push and the leaps in robot technology that are occuring. This book might make you laugh at the start, but its foundation is a serious and scary premise, and Tchaikovsky's humor can only ease that revelation so much. I think this is what good science fiction does: it points at a coming future and tries to convey concerns through a palatable medium of entertainment.

This will definitely be a great book for re-reading, as I'm sure there's a lot of underlying philosophy that I missed in my initial read-through. There are also quite a few funny or niche references sprinkled throughout. The two wolves meme was particularly funny and gave me joy. Overall, another fantastic work of art from Tchaikovsky.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Publishing Group for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this a lot. There were so many moments that I loved, but overall I really loved the exploration of humanity and what it even means to be a human. I did enjoy the humor woven into the story, and I thought that the idea for this story was really compelling. While I did enjoy this story, I did find myself reading this as someone on the outside looking in--I found it hard to truly connect and to immerse myself in the story and the world. Perhaps I just read it at a weird time in my own life.

Delightful tale of a reluctant hero, brave heroine and evil villain - and tea.

Reminiscent of The Millennial Man and structured as an epic hero’s quest, this exploration of what it means to be human and the responsibility that comes with it is so satisfying. I loved the sweet humor of this book, a wholly human feel to world that should have had no feelings whatsoever. A wonderful Pinocchio motif with a kick ass sense of justice.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my copy. These opinions are my own.

4.5 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.

Service Model was a funny and interesting book, to the point where I'd love to keep reading and pick up again. But for the time being, I DNF'd at 20%. I really wanted to like this based off the premise, but maybe it's because I haven't ever read one of his book before, I just couldn't get myself to keep reading.

Absurd, despondent, consistent, ridiculous, audacious. A master writer at the top of his game, jumping the Snake River Canyon with a closely observed view of the logic of a robot during and after a robot apocalypse. Funny and sad and funny again. Wow..

Thank you tor for my review copy of Service Model. From the unexpected action to reaction this book didn't go where I thought it would. I really enjoyed the layers of story about... Robots. Or is it about robots? I had a good time.

Props to Adrian Tchaikovsky for writing a book that paradoxically fulfilled all my expectations without ever going quite where I expected. The narrative voice was charming and I loved the logic trees Charles (or Uncharles, or whichever of his monikers he is using at the moment) ran down at each stage of decision making. Each felt genuinely computational, but also highly relatable. After all, who hasn't gotten caught in a mobius strip of thought resulting in a system glitch/nervous meltdown?

That said, my primary frustration in the story also came from Charles' fastidiously detailed trains of thought. His involved decision-making processes (coupled with the fact that said processes did not always result in a decision) slowed the pace of the story. I understand that his inability to initially act as a protagonist is his primary point of character growth, and I did indeed love watching him grow, but there were moments when I wished for a slightly faster pace. Fortunately, characters like the Wonk helped leaven Charles' sometimes-plodding logic.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes their sci-fi to have an extra layer of meaning. In the end, this book played charming homage to the robot genre, while arguably not being about robots at all.

This is my first book by this author, but I really liked reading the story of (Un)Charles! I was intrigued by the Murderbot comparison, but I think they are largely only similar in that they feature mechanical non-humans and dry humor. This book was a lot more heavy on the philosophy, and was a biting satire that I really appreciated.

Meet Charles, robot valet, at your service!

As I human, should you need some tea made, or traveling clothes laid out, Charles is your man....er robot. Then one day, Charles kills his rich human. Why? He doesn't know. All he knows is that he was made to serve humans. He immediately sets out to find another human to serve. Charles meets "the Wonk" on his travels, and together the two set out to figure out what is going on.

In the outside world, everything appears to have gone wrong. They can't find many humans, and many of the robots they encounter are either too damaged to operate or, if operating, there's no one and nothing to operate for. What has happened in the outside world? Will Charles and Wonk ever discover what went wrong? You'll have to read this to find out!

This science fiction tale was well written and engaging, though a bit slow paced at times. There's a lot more humor here than I expected from a sci-fi novel, and I enjoyed that quite a bit. There are several levels to this story-the fun-ish quest portion as Charles and Wonk try to figure out what is going on, but there's also some sly commentary as well.

With the development of AI looming over us, SERVICE MODEL brings a lot of questions about that to mind. Could humans create robots for everything, so that they can just sit back and enjoy life? Will or would the AI become sentient and turn on humans? What might happen if all humans were killed in some kind of natural disaster? Would AI survive, and if so, what might it do? All of these questions and more floated around in my brain as the story progressed. Some of which were answered, many were not.

Either way, this story was a good one, if a bit lagging at times. It had humor and featured both the best and the worst of humankind. I feel like it also offered a bit of hope as well, (but maybe that's just me.) Whichever way you view the denouement, it's the journey itself that really makes a book, and this journey was fun and enlightening.

Highly recommended!

*ARC from publisher, and I won a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you!*

Service Model is the story of Charles (later Uncharles), a robot valet with a rather significant problem--he murdered his master. After setting off on his own to find his purpose (a.k.a. to find another human to serve), he realizes the outside world is a dystopian hell-scape and there just don't seem to be that many humans left! Amidst several side-quests, Uncharles must navigate novel circumstances and acknowledge that he has the freedom to make his own decisions and create his own purpose.

This story reminds me of Martha Wells' Murderbot series but with much more social commentary and many, many more pages. There definitely could've been some chapters cut out without affecting the story. Overall though, no regrets taking the time to read this. Will remember Uncharles fondly!

3.5/5

Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Service Model is a love child of a very long parable and a philosophy treatise, but written as a riff on quite a few classical authors (the chapter headings give a clue — KR15-T (Christie), K4FK-R (Kafka), 4W-L (Orwell), 80RH-5 (Borges), and D4NT-A (Dante). It’s a story of a robot valet UnCharles (he used to be a “Charles”, but the name had to be left with the house as the robot was dismissed from service) who inexplicably murders his master and goes on a purpose-searching mission through a dystopian wasteland of the future society collapse while adamantly maintaining his lack of self-awareness to an unexpected companion met along the way, the delightfully rebellious The Wonk.

Tchaikovsky engages in a lot of pointed social commentary with a side of dry humor and considerations on the meaning of free will and justice and purpose in life, combining the earnestly naive outlook of our protagonist with the bleak darkness of the surrounding world, producing a comedic effect that’s still very much in a parable style but thankfully very much NOT a recently popular cozy feel.

Tchaikovsky often writes doorstoppers, and it’s one of them — but to be honest the book would have benefited from being half of its length. Maybe I’m just partial to Tchaikovsky’s novellas because he has them down to an art form, but cutting out a section or two from this one would have streamlined the flow. There was a certain repetitiveness in those sections that after the snappiness of the first part made it drag a bit. (On the other hand, however, the slowness added to the allegorical parable feel of the story).

The particular mix of influences here — KR15-T, K4FK-R, 4W-L, 80RH-5 and D4NT-A, with Biblical allegories and philosophical dialogues and hero’s journey — is interesting, and I appreciate that Tchaikovsky is willing to take an experimental risk with it here instead of sticking with the tried and true. The side effect of this stylistic choice is the worldbuilding which is not air-tight but is rather present to make a point, and the point is the journey rather than destination. If you’re not expecting it, however, it may take you aback a bit. But this is a story not for the sake of the plot but for the sake of the message, and in Tchaikovsky’s hands it’s somehow not annoying and a strength rather than the expected weakness.

I’ve seen some comparisons of this book to Murderbot, but I just don’t see it. However, if you’ve read Suzanne Palmer’s Bot 9 stories, you are bound to see some rather lovely similarities.

3.5 stars rounding up.
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Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.