The next Hugo-nominated book: Charles is a valet robot who works for his master. He dutifully puts up his travel coats (though his master hasn’t traveled in years), checks his master’s wife’s calendar (she has been dead for a long time), and coordinates everything with the other robots in the household. He is aware that much of what he does is redundant, but as these tasks are on the list, so he completes them nonetheless.
One day, Charles makes a tiny mistake. His hand movements are only about two centimeters off, but when you’re shaving your master’s beard with a razor, that’s a big deal. Strangely, he doesn’t remember the actual event and can’t find a decision tree that leads to that action. When he discovers a human is dead, he notifies the authorities. A police robot arrives and begins interviewing all the household robots, even though Charles makes a full confession. After all, the task lists must be followed even by police robots.
Eventually, the police can identify the murderer: Charles. He is ordered to report for maintenance at the Diagnostics department because he is clearly defective. He is also stripped of his name and thereafter called Uncharles.
When Uncharles arrives at Diagnostics, he finds a long line. Some robots have already rusted in place, while those still functioning wait patiently for their turn. The Diagnostics department operates very inefficiently, as no humans have overseen the work for some time.
Uncharles meets a Wonk, an apparent robot who claims that Uncharles has caught a “free will virus” and is able to function outside of his programming. Uncharles doesn’t think so—he hasn’t noticed any free will. He decides to find a new place to work—surely there are still humans somewhere who need his services. After all, his mistake was small; he has only killed one employer. It can’t be that serious, right?
So Wonk and Uncharles start a journey through a decaying landscape where they mostly encounter robots trying to function according to their programming, but failing due to the lack of human intervention. What has happened—and why?
A fun, ironic book with some obvious digs at modern corporate greed—if something looks good on a quarterly report, it’s deemed good, regardless of long-term repercussions.
Especially in the beginning, the writing felt a bit long-winded; the descriptions of Charles/Uncharles’s task list and his (in)ability to edit it took up too much space. A bit of condensation might have improved the pacing overall.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty good book—but it won’t be my top choice this year, there are even stronger contenders.
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