Monk and Robot

By Becky Chambers

Recommended by: Elle

Cozy, wholesome, and philosophical. Reading this two-part series felt like sinking into a warm hug. Elle wanted to go and live in this world.

Becky Chambers' delightful, post-Utopian, Hugo Award-winning series gives us hope for the future.

It's been centuries since the robots of Panga gained self-awareness and laid down their tools; centuries since they wandered, en masse, into the wilderness, never to be seen again; centuries since they faded into myth and urban legend.

One day, the life of a tea monk is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered.

But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how.
They're going to need to ask it a lot.