160 pages
English language
Published Aug. 5, 2025 by Tor Publishing Group.
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant. While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone—or something—is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?
From sci-fi visionary and acclaimed author Annalee Newitz comes Automatic Noodle, a cozy near-future novella about a crew of abandoned food service bots opening their very own restaurant. While San Francisco rebuilds from the chaos of war, a group of food service bots in an abandoned ghost kitchen take over their own delivery app account. They rebrand as a neighborhood lunch spot and start producing some of the tastiest hand-pulled noodles in the city. But there’s just one problem. Someone—or something—is review bombing the restaurant’s feedback page with fake “bad service” reports. Can the bots find the culprit before their ratings plummet and destroy everything they created?
A little too cutesy-San-Franciscan for my taste. But deeply pleasant nonetheless. I'll be seeking out more from Newitz I think.
A little too cutesy-San-Franciscan for my taste. But deeply pleasant nonetheless. I'll be seeking out more from Newitz I think.
If you have time to read this book, please do it. The characters are well developed, the world building is amazing, and the coziness is top notch. This book is fun, quick, and also quite impactful (or at least it was for me).
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.
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.
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.
Lovely hopepunk novella, highly recommended for fans of Becky Chambers.
Purchasable
Purchasable
Purchasable
https://bookshop.org/p/books/automatic-noodle-annalee-newitz/625018d0518991aa.https://bookshop.org/p/books/automatic-noodle-annalee-newitz/625018d0518991aa.https://bookshop.org/a/102303/9781250357465.