By Liza Monroy |
Fantastical novellas and collections of short fiction can offer readers a brief respite from reality.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Tor.com, July), the slender first volume in Hugo Award–winner Becky Chambers’s Monk & Robot series, is dedicated to “anybody who could use a break.” Set in a future in which, freed from work obligations, intelligent robots disappeared from cities into the wilderness, the story follows Sibling Dex, a tea monk (job description: “
listen to people, give tea”), who stumbles upon Mosscap, a robot, traversing wild terrain. As much a philosophical journey as a speculative one, the book fits squarely into the burgeoning hopepunk subgenre.