Automatic Noodle

Relatable robots figuring out a way to make good food and survive. It's a short read, leaving a lot of warmness in the heart and in the belly if you imagine hard enough.

A lovely, but too short, story of four robots who want to run a proper restaurant serving biang biang noodles in a future San Francisco, where California has declared independence from the rest of the US. They have to navigate a smart contract to gain ownership of the restaurant, learn how to make noodles, and survive a review bombing before it is over.

The story starts with the robots (with near human intelligence) waking up in a deserted restaurant to discover that they may soon be repossessed as the restaurant's franchise owner has closed. Considering their options, they decide to go their own way, and reopen the restaurant with food they want to serve to pay off their loans. But they have to navigate (and obfuscate) their way into ownership, for robots still cannot own property, and figure out how to serve food.

As first, it works, and their get high ratings. But then, trolls begin to review bomb them, lowering their ratings (and income). Investigating, they discover a group of robot haters and have to figure out how to fight back.

The story is set in a world where California is independent of the rest of the US, but not without a war that ended not long ago. Some of the robots in the restaurant fought in the war, and are recovering from the conflict. But while California may now have more freedoms, robot freedom isn't one of them, and there are still parts of the population that are wary of robots, especially those with near human intelligence.

The story ends with the restaurant on the way to success, but leaves dangling threads in the story, like how the robots ultimate navigate bureaucracy to really own the restaurant, and how the robots and humans will ultimately live together (or not). These might require another story (or two) to settle.

It’s about robots in San Francisco our newly liberated after a war that decide together to open bang bang noodle shop. They all have competing hopes and dreams and worries together they are able to find a way. It’s low stakes, comfy sci-fi with a heart.

"Automatic Noodle" by Annalee Newitz (@annaleen@wandering.shop) is a cozy, sci-fi novella with a lot of heart. Set in a war-ravaged San Francisco after Californian independence, the book follows a group of robots trying to start a restaurant serving hand-pulled biang biang noodles. In this world, robots with Human Equivalent intelligence have been granted Civil Rights by California. But their existence is limited - they can earn money but cannot have a bank account, vote, or reproduce. Through the experiences of these non-human characters, we see explorations about identity, community, and belonging in a world that resists recognizing the person-hood of those characters. The strength of the book is in its gentle world-building. Newitz does not hit you over the head with too much exposition (one of the big sins of a lot of speculative fiction). The author always keeps the focus on the interior lives of the robots as they navigate a complex and exciting new world. Plus, the book is really fun. I enjoyed reading it and found myself smiling as I read. Definitely recommend the book!

I'm not normally much of a cozy fiction reader, but this was lovely: smart, funny, and pointed in highly relevant ways. The story is a simple, warm hug in so many ways, but there's a lot going on underneath to inform the world that Newitz builds; a very dark, involved tale sits just out of frame. Beautifully done as always.

The shtick: intelligent robots traumatized by war, capitalism, and oppression struggle together to establish a noodle shop in war-torn, separatist San Francisco.

Other than thinking robots and tube delivery technology, the worldbuilding is a fever dream of the current moment despite being set in 2064: it's got crypto, LLMs, delivery apps, ghost kitchens, slang like "rizz". But it's unfair to take this aspect too seriously; it's not a hard sf novel trying to speculate about the future. At its heart, it's a comfy emotional novel about forming community around food in a ruined future.

It's fluffy, it's fun, it was something I needed right now.

Automatic Noodle is a short, joyful tale of creating the future you want out of the present you've been stuck with.

The main robots are all well-drawn, individual characters: The octopus-like search-and-rescue bot whose chemical sensors were perfect for analyzing taste and smell, who has fond memories of the falafel truck they worked at after the war (and is seriously into speculating cryptocurrency on the side). The bot with articulated arms and hands, who wants to make something worthwhile with them. The former bank teller, partly humaniform, who becomes more comfortable expressing her inner robot-ness as she explores logistics and supply chains. And the former combat robot, who finds himself tired of working in management and wants to get back into protecting people (both human and robot) and the restaurant, and discovers there are more ways to do that than just muscle (or rather servos) and ammo. The sentient car doing delivery gigs who has a thing for old media and will tell you exactly what's wrong with the offensive robot stereotypes in, say, Transformers.

Cross-posted from my website.

Robots want to set up a noodle restaurant.

It takes a top notch writer to turn that premise into a story that's both sweet and exciting.

Annalee Newitz is that author.