This is a three part novella that I also grabbed from Tor.com (I know I’m so behind, I really do) all of which are science fiction. This first one isn’t long, maybe a hundred pages or so, and I thought it was a super cute story.
The plot follows Sibling Dex, a monk who decides to leave the monastery and become a tea monk, basically someone who listens to people’s problems and gives them tea. This choice is made almost on an impulse, they’ve had no training whatsoever. At first they’re in over their head, but they master their craft and soon excel at it. But eventually they’re unhappy with this job too, so they decide to head into the wilderness. There Dex runs into a robot called Mosscap who has been tasked with initiating contact between the robots and the humans. History there is that the robots one day all gained consciousness and left the humans to live on their own. Surprisingly, the humans respected this and haven’t tried to make contact since then. Mosscap wants to go around asking humans what they need, to figure out what the relationship between these two communities can look like.
They end up travelling together, both learning about each other’s cultures. When they get to their destination in the woods, Dex finally admits that they don’t know what they’re doing in the woods and have no plan going forward but still feel so unhappy. Mosscap responds by performing his own tea monk service for them. They then head into the human villages together to start Mosscap’s work.
I really enjoyed this story! The idea of monks serving tea and travelling around the different villages is super cute, and the descriptions of Mosscap are honestly adorable. I also really liked seeing their relationship change and blossom. The two of them have a number of conversations about nature, being, and purpose and having the clash of viewpoints between the two of them was enlightening. Mosscap’s whole point is that humans are animals, we don’t have a purpose any more than a bear does. And robots, while being constructed things, are like that as well. While humans are made of genes and cells, they are made of metal and solar power.
Mosscap’s whole philosophy actually falls nicely into what you would call subjectivism in theories about the meaning of life. It’s my personal favorite, so I’m a little biased here. Subjectivism is the idea that you could pick anything you want to be the meaning of your life. That could be sitting in your backyard and counting every blade of grass, it does not matter what it is and it’s different for every person. The robots have an almost identical version of this where robots are known to go off into the woods and spend years watching stalagmites grow and things like that. Dex falls more under the category of objectivism as well as nihilism at points. Objectivism is the idea that some purposes in life are better than others, that you should pursue good things like being nice to people and stuff like that. This is actually what most philosophers agree with these days, in the interest of creating a functioning society. When Dex is freaking out trying to become a good tea monk and serve their god, they are aligning with objectivism. And nihilism is the idea that there is no purpose to life at all, you can do whatever you want and it simply won’t matter in the end. Dex’s crisis over not knowing what they should do aligns nicely with this idea, although they don’t wallow in it for very long. The story actually serves as a really nice primer for these ideas!
My one issue is that there’s a bit of a loose end that doesn’t get wrapped up. The best way to describe Dex’s rationale for leaving is that they want to hear crickets chirping. They don’t find any by the end, and it doesn’t even get mentioned while they’re in the wilderness. Which can be easily explained by saying that it was never really about the crickets, but still feels strange to not address it.
Loved reading this story, definitely would recommend it if
you’re looking for something short and sweet!
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