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WesternSFA


Service Model
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
tordotcom, $28.99, 384pp
Publish June 2024

This is a remarkable story; I can’t imagine why I haven’t encountered this author before.  I shall have to remedy that with more stories.

The story begins with Charles, a top-of-the-line sophisticated gentleman’s robot valet. Charles had just killed his elderly employer but doesn’t realize it.  Once he does, he attempts to communicate the fact to the House Major-domo but runs into inescapable logic paths that fail to actually accomplish anything. While attempting to get a robot doctor to pronounce the death, poor Charles ends up with a “stable” diagnosis.  Eventually, a detective robot appears at the house and hilariously attempts to “investigate”.  There were some lovely clues in this chapter that I failed to appreciate until now.  Charles is then ordered by the detective to report to Decommissioning.  Charles states that he intends to go first to Diagnostics to get the “why and wherefore” of his actions.  The House Major-domo confirms that Charles received that task a nanosecond before the Detective’s task directive.  Charles’ tasks are his raison d’etre and nothing can be done without being added to the task list, nor can he easily ignore uncompleted tasks.  Currently, he was agonized (in a robotic way) not to be performing the tasks for which he was programmed; namely, caring for his employer.  The House and the Detective solved that dilemma, allowing Charles to push those incomplete tasks to a pending file.  As Charles left the House, House insisted he give up his name, which belonged to his employer, so as an Undesignated Valet Unit, he discovered that the task directive to report to Decommissioning disappeared as it must’ve been tagged to his name.  His own task of reporting to Diagnostics was the only task left in his active queue.  So off he went, searching for Central Services.  Finding himself in a heretofore unanticipated journey, on foot, to a destination he doesn’t know, causes UVU some moments of observation.  He observes that most of the manor houses in his neighborhood just beg for a competent gardening robot, or a House Major-Domo who could make necessary repairs to the broken windows and empty look. 

Finally finding Central Services and the Diagnostics department, poor UVU is forced to continue making observations, the result of which are independent questions.  Such as noting that the long line of robots waiting for Diagnostics indicates a very long wait; years maybe.  And then: jumping the line just to see if he. Could. Just. Walk. In.  There was a strange robot outside with mismatched parts and to UVU’s surprise, it turned out to be a Diagnostician happy to help him.  And this was where he obtained the name Uncharles since the Diagnostician, who wanted to be called The Wonk, needed a real name from him.  Actually, he self-designated himself as Uncharles; and, hilariously enough, every robot he encountered accepted the new designation.  And from here, everything went downhill, in a real hurry.

The Wonk, later abbreviated to just Wonk, informed Uncharles that he had the Protagonist Virus.  Apparently, this virus caused robots to become self-aware and self-directing.  Insomuch as a robot can be said to be indignant, Uncharles declared that no evidence of such a virus existed in his records.  Ah, but...said Wonk…that’s what someone with the virus would say.   And it still didn’t answer why Charles took a straight razor to his employer’s throat. After a confusing and, to be honest, a rather humorous Keystone-Cops type chase with the real Diagnostician chasing after Wonk, and then being unceremoniously tossed out of Central Services, Charles is stymied with nothing on his task list to do.  Another incomprehensible conversation with Wonk, who followed him out of the building, did actually give him a plausible direction to go and find humans.  Needless to say, it wasn’t quite the employment situation he’d hoped for…if robots could feel hope.  Which they most definitely do not.

The story is very episodic with Uncharles and Wonk leaving one frying pan only to end up in another fire.  At each step along the way, Uncharles finds himself pushing his own directives and while he knows a robot could never feel frustration, if he could he’d apply that word to the unnecessary overuse of his processing resources just trying to keep up with and understand Wonk.  He is constantly searching for an employment prospect so he could “happily” return to his task list. It is an annoyance, if such a thing could apply to a robot – which it doesn’t, to be constantly berated by Wonk asking why he doesn’t want to pursue an answer to what happened to him; as in, why did he murder his employer and why can’t he find that file.

That is probably the most rambling synopsis I’ve ever written.  This is probably the most rambling story I’ve ever read; not that that’s a bad thing.  Other than “delighted”, “intrigued”, or “amused”, I don’t quite know how to describe this story. I felt, at first, that I should be annoyed or even bored with this self-contained robot who refused to admit he might be self-aware; but I wasn’t.  In fact, I had to make myself put the book down to get a proper number of hours of sleep; resentfully, I might add. But this inconvenience only lasted one night as I finished the book the next day.

Without giving away any major spoilers, it would be obvious to any reader what Wonk really was.  The fun was that Uncharles was oblivious; even actively making up explanations for behavior that was unpredictable and incomprehensible. And while we, the readers, knew what Wonk was, that didn’t explain in the slightest how Wonk got there or what their intentions were.  For that we had to wait until the very, very end of the story.  And some might look at the end and criticize the author for rushing it or making it too simplistic.  I can only say:  this story was about the journey, not the destination. 

The author stands up human foibles for all to see, including the robots.  And no one, including the robots, saw them for the contradicting, implausible, selfish, and ignoble characteristics that they are.  You could argue the humans had it coming. So, the story could have disintegrated into a harsh criticism of humanity (it wouldn’t be the first); despite the robots continuing to hold up their end of the bargain by being the perfect helpmeet for all humans.  (Be careful how you word that wish to a genie.) But it didn’t, not really. However, I’m not prepared to say that Wonk was portrayed truthfully; the author didn’t give the reader any backstory.  Nor was this reader convinced that Uncharles gained sentience; he would protest that forever.  I am, though, convinced that this was a funny and brilliant story.  After all, John Scalzi himself gave it kudos.  If you enjoy tongue-in-cheek observations, acerbic self-deprecating humor (in a robot), or darkly humorous statements about the human condition, then this is definitely written for you.  ~~  Catherine Book

P.S. Take notice of section headings; there’s a hidden message. If you need an interpretation, send me an email from our contact link.

For more titles by Adrian Tchaikovsky click here

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