Their first awkward encounter results in their client trying to reassure them when they freeze up in the face of her distress. Dex doesn’t know how to make a good cup of tea, let alone provide emotional or psychological support. What tea monks do (or should do) is create a safe space for people who are physically or emotionally exhausted, angry or grieving or frustrated. It’s not immediately obvious from Dex’s first attempt that a tea monk is not a therapist – which is what initially made me angry. It took a wrong turn for me early on, when Dex – having decided to become a tea monk – declines education in their new vocation, preferring to dive in at the deep end.

The problem for me is the important distinction between self-love and selfishness – and I found Dex incredibly selfish.

In other words, love yourself – and let yourself be enough. The result is one of my favourite moments in the book, where Mosscap the robot steps through Dex’s logic and rejects it, insisting that one is allowed to just live and appreciate life in all its forms – including your own. There’s no resistance to Dex’s desire to explore new things (on the contrary, they are fully supported in changing their focus from the gardens to tea) – but it eventually becomes evident that they harbour guilt that the status quo is never enough for them, in part because they are desperate to find their purpose. Once they have mastered their vocation, they get itchy feet. Dex the tea monk struggles to settle down: they have an affinity for plants and take pleasure in helping others, but they get restless. Beware: navel-gazing and spoilers!įrom ten thousand feet, the novella is a meandering interrogation of the concept of purpose in life. For all its positives and that killer opening line (yes, yes, sometimes you do just need to get out of the city), A Psalm For The Wild-Built made me incandescently angry within a couple of chapters and never recovered my goodwill.Ĭonsequently, this won’t be so much a review as an examination of why the novella rubbed me up the wrong way.

Don’t get me wrong – its heart is in the right place the world-building features a harmonious, ecologically sound future that I was curious to explore the robot envoy is adorable (as are its descriptions of robot society) – and yet. I guess it had to happen eventually: a Becky Chambers story that I just didn’t enjoy. Now, they are ready to make contact again – and a restless young tea monk will be asked the biggest question: what makes humanity happy? When humanity gave them their freedom, they disappeared into the wilderness. Generations past, the robots of Panga achieved sentience and were unhappy with their lot.

A psalm for the wild build