Hands, Sweetie, and the Hand-Pulled Heist: A Clever Look at Bot LaborIt's 2064 when the service bots—Staybehind, Sweetie, Hands, and Cayenne—reboot from a forced stasis. After months of being offline, they wake up to a disaster: their former workplace is flooded, and the restaurant's human owners have abandoned them, leaving them with a mountain of debt.In this future, autonomous bot operations are strictly forbidden, yet these four are on the hook to pay what they owe. With no human supervision...

I read—well, actually, *listened* to—*Automatic Noodle* based on a recommendation from my online buddy, Mike Finn. And I'm seriously stoked that I did!Set in a future where the U.S. has seen better days, the story centers around a crew of robots (with a human or two sprinkled in) who were hired to work at this one particular restaurant. The robots wake up one day to find out the restaurant owners are under investigation, and the place is shuttered. So, the bots decide as a group to reopen the re...

☆☆☆☆ Annalee Newitz's *Automatic Noodle* completely took me by surprise, in the best possible way. It's a sharp and imaginative story that's both incredibly timely and deeply comforting—especially if you're a foodie. The descriptions of the food throughout the book are so vivid and immersive, they practically jump off the page. As someone who counts Biang Biang noodles among my absolute favorites, I was thrilled to see them portrayed with such texture, heat, and genuine love. But *Automatic No...

Just four robots, a human, and a car opening a noodle shop in a futuristic, post-war San Francisco. How lovely. I was genuinely upset when someone started review-bombing their restaurant. Like, these are such tender creatures, could you just leave them alone, please? Annalee Newitz's "Automatic Noodle" creates such a heartwarming and unique world. A truly delightful read; I highly recommend it for anyone looking for feel-good science fiction. Definitely one of the best book reviews I've written ...

Started as a 4-star read, then nosedived straight to 1.Okay, so here's my 2 AM rant. Let me preface this by saying that when I started reading **Automatic Noodle** by Annalee Newitz, I was totally into it. It seemed fun and cute, but my feelings took a serious turn for the worse pretty quickly.If you only have time to read one reason why I hated this book, please skip to #5.1. I'm sorry, but I thought this was a book about robots running a noodle shop? Can we get more of *that*, please? Every re...

I didn’t realize cozy sci-fi was a thing, but it works surprisingly well in "Automatic Noodle" by Annalee Newitz. I suppose if you replaced the robots with unicorns or trolls, it would basically be cozy fantasy because it follows a similar story structure. Think of it like a warm hug from a robot chef!Overall, this was a fun, quick read. I was completely engrossed when the story focused on what was happening at the restaurant. When it drifted into the robots' past lives, my attention started to ...

I found Annalee Newitz's *Automatic Noodle* well-written on a stylistic level and passively charming in parts, but three things ultimately ruined the experience for me. 1. It's not cozy. To be clear, I find most cozy writing boring, and *Automatic Noodle* didn't NEED to be cozy. However, it's advertised as such, while ultimately focusing on war, trauma, citizenship insecurity, and bigotry, and the fact that it's set in a noodle shop does nothing to offset any of that. If you're looking for a co...

1.5/5 Crypto and AI robots? Seriously, I'm so over reading about this stuff in sci-fi. Why would anyone write about AI robots and then make them act like humans? Because these are the least robotic robots I've ever encountered. They're more human than machine. Beyond that, "Automatic Noodle" is basically a cozy sci-fi novella with zero plot. It's just a bunch of robots trying to run a restaurant, so I guess it's like a sci-fi version of "Legends & Lattes." If you're looking for lighthearted A...

I listened to the audiobook version of *Automatic Noodle*, and it was fantastic! The narrator was absolutely perfect. It was short, sweet, cozy, but surprisingly powerful. The characters are so full of hope and love, even though they live in a world that's hostile to people like them and they have to endure segregation. Annalee Newitz really created something special here. Having such passionate descriptions of food as the thread that holds the story together was brilliant. The tastes felt as ...

4.5 stars rounded up!A cozy sci-fi novella about found family and sentient robots opening a noodle shop in San Francisco! *Automatic Noodle* is charming on its surface, but it's also using the othering of robots in this futuristic world as a metaphor for the treatment of people based on gender, sexuality, and immigration status. It feels like a hopeful and timely story about noodles that sound absolutely delicious! I really enjoyed *Automatic Noodle* by Annalee Newitz, and I think it's smartly d...