Fiction Reviews
Service Model
(2024) Adrian Tchaikovsky, Tor, £22, hrdbk, 376pp, ISBN 978-1-035-04566-2
‘One of best storytellers in the business’, writes John Scalzi on the cover of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest novel Service Model, and it’s hard to argue. Of late, he’s been giving us expansive space opera such as the excellent 'Children of Time' series, but he’s nothing if not versatile (e.g. his BSFA award-winning fantasy novel City of Last Chances) and this, although still SF, is a delightful departure from his (albeit eclectic) norm.
It's light hearted post-apocalyptic tale, often bordering on comedy, but packing a serious punch. It’s a future where the humans have all but disappeared and the robots – not quite intelligent enough for AI – are all behaving as though they’re still serving their ‘masters’ until errors, glitches and contradictions caused by the complete breakdown of civilisation gets their little metal heads spinning leading to all sorts of irrational behaviour.
Charles is a valet in a mansion formerly inhabited by one of the rich humans with enough foresight to cut himself off from the rest of the disintegrating world. Except Charles has slit his master’s throat when shaving him, so he’s out of a job and feels compelled to find out why he should have deviated from his primary programming in such a gruesome fashion. He is not exactly self-aware, but he’s getting there, thanks to a human called ‘The Wonk’ who Charles (now unCharles, because his name was tied to the job he no longer has) encounters and can’t seem to get rid of, who seems intent into goading him into full self-determination. UnCharles, naturally, thinks the Wonk is a defective robot, which leads to some great comedic moments. Together they navigate a world where robots wait patiently in line until they rust to the spot, libraries that destroy everything in the process of protecting it, robot soldiers fighting endless, pointless wars and, ultimately ‘god’, or at least the AI equivalent.
UnCharles is a great point of view character. His search for work is a programming compulsion but he’s not quite the unthinking automaton he keeps arguing (unconvincingly) that he is. The starting premise is that artificial life is inherently stupid, but as the novel progresses it’s clear that how dumb the silly robots doing meaningless tasks ad infinitum are, the humans who programmed them are dumber still. The reasons for society’s collapse are revealed in the final chapters, as the book gets all serious and message-y, but it is hardly a spoiler to say it all ended not with a bang but with a whimper. And in the end we find out why UnCharles was so slapdash with the cutthroat razor.
The author must have had great fun writing this one and it’s certainly great fun to read. Unusual, quirky and surprisingly though-provoking, there’s surely a grain of truth in amongst the exaggerated characters and seemingly ridiculous situations. It couldn’t end like this, could it?
Mark Bilsborough
See also Steven's take on Service Model and Jonathan's review of Service Model.
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