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.
——————

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

A fascinating, humorous, and unnerving look into the future! As robotics become more prevalent, we often think they are bettering society. What if they find themselves faced with free thought or settings created by humans that do not make sense? The robot characters were endearing in their own way and I felt bad for those who were so lost. This book entertained me but still left me pondering.

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, Tor Publishing Group and author Adrian Tchaikovsky for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you Tor Books @torbooks , Netgalley @netgalley and Adrian Tchaikovsky for this free ebook!
“Service Model” by Adrian Tchaikovsky ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: SciFi/Post-Apocalyptic Location: From the Manor House to Diagnostics to the Farm, to the Library, to the Wasteland, to the Future. Time: When humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service.

“I wish to report an error in the way everything works.” Charles is a sophisticated, human-sized valet robot living in a wealthy manor house-until Charles inexplicably murders Master, its owner. Charles heads for the Diagnostics facilities to fix its new self-determination flaw. An unusual character called The Wonk renames Charles “Uncharles”. The Wonk seeks meaning, and Uncharles seeks new human employment, so they venture out into a dangerous, disintegrating world full of trials for them to overcome, and lessons for them to learn.

Author Tchaikovsky has written a “Pilgrim’s Progress” style novel in an post-apocalyptic world setting. The action sequences are separated by long, philosophical/political messages. He divides his book into 5 parts, each an homage to classics from Agatha Christie to Dante. Watch for other literary references as well, e.g. “Need me to get the oil, tin man?” ‘Uncharles, we’re going behind the curtain.” Tchaikovsky’s main characters (the eternally innocent robot and the questioning, suffering The Wonk) are likable, often humorous opposites: Uncharles-“Your argument suffers from logical lacunae…” The Wonk-“…your starting point is zip doodely nada nothing. Ultimately, it’s about how humans treat humans as much as robot self-determination, full of messages/warnings to readers (I can’t help wondering how much more compelling it might have been had it been edited down), and its 3 stars from me🌵📚💁🏼‍♀️ #torbooks #tordotcom #netgalley #postapocalyptic

This was a humorous and thought-provoking dystopian tale about free will, human emotion, and purpose.

I enjoyed most of the interactions amongst robots as Uncharles progressed through his journey. Wonk was a quirky, driven character that added some urgency and kept Uncharles moving forward. There were several laugh out loud moments but most of the story was quiet and philosophical.

The drawback for me was the slow pace, repetition, and allegorical/philosophical focus. I expected it to be a quicker read for me based on page count, but the story dragged and felt overlong. The comparison to Murderbot didn’t set expectations well as that series has intense, detailed plots, frequent action sequences, and a protagonist with strong agency. Unlike Murderbot, Uncharles is an obedient robot struggling to find his way in a broken world, insisting he has no free will or emotions, and that made him hard to connect with and root for.

Thanks to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the ARC.

📚 #BOOKREVIEW 📚
Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
⭐️⭐️⭐️ / Pages: 373 / Genre: Sci-Fi
Audiobook Narrator: Adrian Tchaikovsky
Duration: 12 hours 21 minutes
Release Date: June 4, 2024

The premise of this book is a dystopian world where humans are dying out and totally reliant on robots. One day a robot named Charles kills his master and is then taken in to be dismantled. Along the way, he meets another robot named Wonk, who convinces him to run away, where he discovers a new world for robots where humans are no longer in charge.

Written with lots of typical dry British humor, very similar to my favorite authors Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman, so I totally expected to love this one. But alas… SNOOZE FEST! The dialog between the robots just about killed me. They think in programming loops so each new thought went around and around and AROUND. And one robot trying to get the other robot to get out of the loop put me to sleep faster than reading an actual computer science textbook.

I received an advanced copy of the ebook and the audiobook but even the audiobook couldn’t save it. The author is the narrator, and he has a lovely British accent. Sometimes he changes his voice for different characters but sometimes he doesn’t. So when Wonk and Charles are having one of their excruciatingly long stuck-in-a-loop conversations it’s so tiring trying to figure out who is saying what until you just stop trying and fall asleep. The story itself was good but the repetitive dialogue just ruined it for me.

Thank you @NetGalley, @macmillan.audio, and @tordotcompub for my gifted copies.

In Adrian Tchaikovsky’s comic and thought-provoking Service Model, the one-time valet robot named Charles embarks on a journey to discover the source of a fatal error in his routines. His unforgettable travels, as is the case with all great books about journeys, leads him through adventures that lay bare the follies of human society, in this case, across a post-apocalyptic landscape. The trope of a robot stepping outside the bounds of its instruction set and wandering a broken world has been done many times, but Tchaikovsky brings to the story a brilliant comic wit and an imagination that plumbs the depths of robot logic and human behavior.

Service Model introduces us to Charles, an impeccably mannered and efficient robot valet in the wealthy household of his Master. Having received his lengthy task list from the House AI upon entering service, fresh from the factory, Charles is meticulous in checking off each task for his Master as it is completed, even though many of those tasks are useless since Master never goes anywhere these days. There are no travel arrangements to be made, no travel clothes worn, no guests arriving on social occasions. Nevertheless, that is not Charles’s concern. What the Master does or does not actually do has no bearing on the importance to Charles of carrying out each and every task. That is his remit, and so long as all tasks are complete, all is right in Charles’s world.

Until one day, Charles notes strange red stains after cleaning the white upholstery of Master’s car, similar stains on his traveling clothes and a report from the kitchen (robot) staff of red stains on the dishware. Charles traces back his actions to the point where he was shaving Master that morning and finds the source of all that red. For some unaccountable reason, Charles had cut his Master’s throat. He advises the House AI that he has committed a murder and asks for the police to be summoned. He knows that this will likely end his career as a valet but then questions why that should be so. After all, he thinks, kitchen (robot) staff get extra chances when they break dishes. Surely it’s only reasonable that a valet should not lose its place after killing only one Master. Charles clings to the idea of reasonableness, but it seems he is also considering the question of fairness, and that is a feeling robots are not supposed to have.

Tchaikovsky sustains a third person tongue-in-cheek narrative from Charles’s point of view to capture the unemployed robot’s efforts to impose his clear logic on a world that doesn’t seem to be working at all the way it should.

I thought Service Model was going to be hilarious satire of human society and artificial intelligence, but it poses more and more serious questions as the journey of this questioning robot gets deeper into the center of a post-apocalyptic world. While Charles keeps trying to fulfill the narrow mandate of a robot, others remind him at every turn that he is doing much more than passively fulfilling a role. He shows agency, choice, free will in every situation he lands in as well as the signs of feelings. Charles finds it absurd to think he might have feelings as a robot since he is only programmed to execute clearly and logically defined tasks. Yet again and again he wonders if something he experiences might be classified as hope or a sense of fairness or even happiness if only he can find a place in this world where his talents could be appreciated.

Tchaikovsky has written a brilliant and thought-provoking satire that pours dozens of interesting ideas into a well-worn situation while being wildly entertaining. Service Model is one of the highlights of my reading this year.

In a crumbling dystopian world where mankind has replaced all menial work with robots, Charles a robotic gentleman’s valet in a wealthy manor finds himself without a purpose when his Master dies. With nothing left to do he ventures out into the world to find it chaotic and dysfunctional. There is no one left who can help him find another Master that he so badly wants to serve so he must go on his own journey of discovery.

Adrian Tchaikovsky has certainly had fun writing this book. It’s written in five sections, each referencing a recognisable classical writer (section headings give a clue to which one) as a different part or Charles’ journey. There are underlying serious philosophical questions about religion, current society, treatment of the environment and the justice system as Charles (now calling himself Uncharles) finds himself in a range of weird situations. Charles’ experiences are often humorous and often quite absurd. Despite claiming he has no free will or emotion, he develops a distinct personality with views on what he sees along the road. A friend he meets along the road called The Wonk, who he regards as an odd broken down robot, helps him to eventually see that he is becoming more sentient and is capable of choosing his own destiny. A big book with a lot of social commentary packed in to it, delivered with a dry humour and plenty of references to popular culture.