When a robot built for construction work first sees an angular, sleek prototype military robot slink onto the base he's working outside of, he immediately falls in love. The problem is, only anomalous bots understand the concept of love, and the lowly laborbot has not deviated from his default programming once. So he thinks, anyway. When the laborbot is scheduled for decommission, the military bot cannot possibly live without him, and the two bots set out on a path to find the fabled anomalous robot utopia Root.
COVER ARTIST: Aimee Cozza
PUBLISHER: 9mm Press
YEAR: 2024
LENGTH: 196 pages
AGE: Adult
GENRE: Science Fiction
RECOMMENDED: Highly
Queer Rep Summary: The main characters are robots, likely closest to aro/ace but those terms aren't quite applicable. Gender is also not an important factor.
THE WARM MACHINE plays with ideas of friendship, connection, and searching for utopia, all through the lens of a construction robot who falls in love at first sight with a military bot. It delves into questions of personhood, agency, and autonomy, and whether a chassis is separable from the self.
Partly but not only because the main characters are robots, this will appeal to those looking for a romantic or queerplatonic story with some adventure that doesn't have a sexual component. Great for those who love Martha Wells' Murderbot series but want a whole book that's just Murderbot and ART. The character list is small, with enough information to paint the shape of something much more complex, especially due to the interactions on the botnet.
I was pleasantly surprised by the direction that the plot takes. The pacing isn't quite slow, but it's a generally calm story where the bots are operating under restrictions and surveillance without actively being in danger most of the time. This changes towards the end, as the danger they've been so competently avoiding thus far comes knocking on their door, prompting a crisis which threatens to upend their careful plans for a new life outside of human control.
If you like this you may like:
- All Systems Red by Martha Wells
- World Running Down by Al Hess
Moderate CW for anxiety, panic attacks/disorders, racism, dubious consent, violence, self-harm, suicide attempt, suicide, trafficking, slavery, death.
Minor CW for sex work, sex slavery.
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