The Cybernetic Tea Shop

Firmly in the cozy fantasy genre, and a surprisingly large amount of character development and story in a small package. I really enjoyed the characters -- I love how Clara knows herself really well and refuses to constrain her wandering feet. I love that her companion is an emotionally resonant hummingbird robot. I also really love Sal's plotline, and the contemplation of mortality/immortality that she invites us to partake in. Satisfying.

Absolutely beautifully done, with a wonderful braid of feelings and complexities and personalities. The retro-future setting wound up feeling almost perfectly timeless, even with the focus from time to time on Clara's job - and, of course, on Sal's very existence.

Sal and Clara were so very engaging, both of them in different ways and in the ways they interacted, emotionally and logically. The coming together and the growth were so very well portrayed and the difficulties they faced made me want them to overcome them - and together - while throwing up enough things that might be in the realm of couldn't change to make me sorrowfully wonder if they would.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a light, refreshing read that manages to be sweet without becoming saccharine.

Sal is one of the few remaining sentient AIs, as their creation was banned centuries before. Sal’s passed the years with a steady routine, running an old fashioned tea shop for what’s been almost three hundred years. The tea shop belonged to a woman she loved, and she keeps the shop going as a sort of shrine to her.

Clara is a technician who specializes in the programming of non-sentient AI companions. She’s a restless sort of person who never likes to stay very long in any one place. When she comes to Seattle, she finds Sal’s tea shop, and she brings some unexpected change into Sal’s life.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a quick show more story; I read it in the span of an hour between two of my classes. It’s listed as a novella, but at only sixty-seven pages, I’m not sure if it would actually qualify as a novelette. Anyway, it’s a book I guarantee can be read in one day.

What drew me to The Cybernetic Tea Shop was the knowledge that Clara was asexual. I’m not sure I’ve ever read a f/f asexual romance, and The Cybernetic Tea Shop is one that kept popping up as a recommendation. The word is never used, but Clara describes herself such that it’s clear she is ace. Part of me wonders if there’s some sort of pattern in SFF stories with ace romances of the ace person falling in love with a ghost or a robot or someone else where sex isn’t really an option anyway. I don’t think it’s a fault of The Cybernetic Tea Shop, but it’s a pattern I think I’m going to keep my eye on.

The Cybernetic Tea Shop is a lovely, quiet science fiction story about grief and moving on with life. If that sounds like your cup of tea, than I suggest giving it a read.

Review from The Illustrated Page show less

I am in love with everything this story chooses to be.

The main characters are an autonomous robot, Sal, who has been running a teashop for almost 300 years; a mechanic, Clara, who can't stay in one place for more than a year and is also ace (!); and a robotic hummingbird companion, Joanie. You will love all of them.

I adored the characters, the setting, and even the resolution. It wasn't what I expected, and yet it was indeed a cathartic ending. The story also felt complete despite being short, something that felt lacking with some other short stories I read recently. Please read this if you can.

Note: The word "asexual" isn't used, but Clara explains her lack of sexual attraction pretty clearly.

This is a lighthearted ace (asexual) romance between a human and an AI. I found it to be simple and sweet, though maybe a little less cozy than I imagined. I could have done with a few more tea shop vibes to really set the mood. I felt the ace rep was done well without having to overstate every detail. I think maybe I just expected a bigger impact, or a bit more detail (I don't think I knew it was a novella going in), so I was left a little underwhelmed. But if you're looking for something short and generally cheerful, I'd recommend this. If this became a series of novellas about the characters, I would certainly read more.

Great SF novella about intolerance. The more intolerance I see in fiction or in the world the more I hate it. But here's a real zen koan for you, if you hate intolerance do you hate intolerant people, and if you do hate them doesn't that make you intolerant. Anyways I really enjoyed the story as I like tea and Ai, but even if you don't it still is a great story.

Clara is a drifter whose ability to repair Raises, Robotic Artificially Intelligent Synthetic Entities (sentient robots with animal forms), means that she can find work nearly everywhere she goes. When Clara visits the Cybernetic Tea Shop on the advice of her newest boss, she's shocked to see that the owner is a 278-year-old android named Sal. It has long been illegal to create sapient androids, and Sal is one of the few remaining models built prior to the law being passed. Although her owner died a long time ago, Sal does her best to see out the woman's dream: keeping the Cybernetic Tea Shop open for 300 years.

This was a very gentle and quiet story, primarily focused on the characters' emotions. Clara had to deal with the pain of show more realizing that she was falling for someone whose way of life didn't mesh with hers – she couldn't rid herself of her desire to move to new places, and Sal was completely bound to the tea shop and her memories of her original owner. Meanwhile, the only thing keeping Sal going was the tea shop. At the same time, she suspected she couldn't keep it open for another 22 years. There weren't enough customers, vandalism from anti-android groups was a drain on her finances, and her body and software were beginning to fail her in ways that she couldn't afford to get fixed.

But don't worry, there was a happy ending! I'm still not sure how I feel about certain aspects of it – I can't say too much without including spoilers, but it felt a little unbalanced. Still, I'm glad that Clara and Sal got a happy ending. I enjoyed their deepening friendship and romance, and Sal was so lonely and alone that it was nice to read about her meeting someone who liked being around her and wanted to help her, no strings attached.

This was a wonderfully sweet story, but it wasn't perfect. The first scene, in which Clara decided to move to Seattle, was odd and did nothing more than establish her drifter nature and give readers a little of her history. If that scene had been removed and the important information incorporated into the rest of the text more, Clara and Sal could have met earlier. As it was, they met halfway through the story, and I was left wishing that Katz had spent a little more time demonstrating Sal's growing trust in Clara.

This was a little too short to be completely satisfying, the writing had a few clumsy moments, and the world-building was a little off (the decision to outlaw sapient androids was made because it was considered unethical to own them, but the anti-android groups didn't appear to be very concerned with the ethics of committing hate crimes against them). Still, I enjoyed it. I liked all the characters, Clara's hummingbird Raise was fun, and it's one of the few examples I've found of romance starring an asexual character (Clara) that isn't ham-handed about the character's asexuality.

Rating Note:

If I think about this one too hard, it seems more like a 3.5-star story. On a more emotional level, 4 stars feels right. I went with 4 stars.

(Original review, including read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less