I rather hope that the two of them just head off into the wilds together and live happily.After A Psalm for the Wild-Built comes this tale of hope and acceptance in the second volume of the USA Today bestselling Monk and Robot series.Īfter touring the rural areas of Panga, Sibling Dex (a Tea Monk of some renown) and Mosscap (a robot sent on a quest to determine what humanity really needs) turn their attention to the villages and cities of the little moon they call home. Which Chambers is procrastinating about writing. Once they get to the City, their journey is over, and they may have to part. They may feel that they have different reasons for doing so, but the real reason is that they have come to value each other’s company. Mostly, however, the book is about Dex and Mosscap procrastinating about doing something they know they need to do. That includes discovering that humans can be quite dishonest with other humans that they claim to care deeply about. Mosscap also gets to meet Sibling Dex’s family, which is a whole other new experience. I was a little suspicious at first, until I was reminded that the human world has a sophisticated internet system that can keep track of translations and lead to easy price discovery. It is essentially money, though it is not called that, and it doesn’t need banks and interest rates. The one piece of worldbuilding that Chambers does here is teaching Mosscap about the human economic system. It is, understandably, an overwhelming experience. He’s never encountered humans in large numbers before, and knows nothing about human society. In this book, Mosscap has to do the learning. He’d never seen an actual robot before, and knew nothing of the wild lands where he encountered Mosscap.

In A Psalm for the Wild-Built it was Sibling Dex who had a lot to learn. But for now Becky Chambers is content to develop the relationship between her two main characters. There’s not a lot of left to learn about the world of the Monk and Robot books, and we know at some point Dex has to take Mosscap to the City to meet Important People. Indeed, it may well be the middle book of a trilogy. As with Embertide, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy feels very much like a middle book.

A prayer for the wild built