book lovers abhor a vacuum; since there’s no host for this month’s book club six days in, I decided to host. for October’s IndieWeb Book Club, I chose A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers. as a novella clocking in at 160 pages, it’s a short read to make up for the days lost. I wanted something short enough that joining in halfway through the month wouldn’t feel like signing up for homework, but with enough substance to send our thoughts in different directions.
the first in Chambers’ Monk and Robot duology (next in the series is A Prayer for the Crown-Shy), it won the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novella and offers an accessible introduction to the solarpunk and hopepunk genres.
as my own fiction choices generally tend to involve heavier, more dystopian-skewing material (currently reading Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly, which, like the movie, is not feel-good!), I opted for a book choice that might leave us feeling better about humanity and the state of the world after the final page 🤓
Wikipedia synopsis:
On a habitable moon called Panga, AI and robots used to have a central role in the urbanized, industrialized society. However, several hundred years ago, the robots left human society and disappeared to the wilderness. Without their AI and robot workers and high-tech automated factories, the humans switch to a sustainable solarpunk lifestyle, with farms and small communities.
Dex, a non-binary tea-serving monk, is traveling around the human-populated areas of their moon, going from one community to another. Dex’s goal is to meet villagers and townsfolk and custom-blend tea to fit the people’s needs and personalities. In addition to being an act of service, Dex also uses tea serving as an “ice-breaker” to enable people to confide their misgivings and concerns to them.
One day, Dex, seeking a change in their routine, travels far beyond the agrarian communities into the unsettled wilderness. They are shocked to encounter a robot, as humans have not seen robots for centuries, ever since the robots left for the wild. The robot, named Splendid Speckled Mosscap, joins Dex on a road trip deeper into the wilderness to find an abandoned monastery. Dex and Mosscap are both searching to find “What do people need?”
want to join me? read A Psalm for the Wild-Built sometime this October and post on your own blog a full review, a favourite passage, a question it leaves you with, or a few sentences about how you found it. send me your post via email by 31 October 2026 (or a note that you’ve a late submission incoming); I’ll add links to all entries here as they come in. I’d love to hear what you make of it, whether or not it’s your cup of tea 🍵🤖
folks who read
- Literary hugs: Do you have milk and optimism with your tea? by V.H. Belvadi highlights the book’s rare, gentle optimism and its comforting message about purpose, calling it a “literary hug” for anyone feeling weary of the world.