This book was read at Kalimna, Yeranda cottages, near Dungog in early January 2026.
What a magical story is contained in the novella-length pages of Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newtitz.
Set in a post-apocalyptic mid-21st century California, which has just won its independence after a brutal war with an insidiously controlling United States of America, and San Francisco in particular, the novella is a reinvigorating story of dreams found and hope re-established with all of it taking place in an environment where good things are happening after the terrifying destructiveness of war but where dark and terrible things still lurk, seeming to do harm.
At the centre of this wholly charming but grittily realistic and honest story are four “human equivalent embodied intelligence” (HEEI, pronounced “Hee-Eye”) individuals, what we rather crassly call robots in the here and now, who awaken in the restaurant in which they work to discover that five months have elapsed since their last recorded days of consciousness and activity.
StayBehind is an ex-military robot who is struggling with some deeply troubling memories from the war, Sweetie is a non-binary HEEI seeking a stronger sense of her authentic self, while Cayenne and Hands are firm friends, and maybe more, who have stood by each other through some fairly terrible times.
Coming online first as water flowing into the abandoned restaurant in which they have been left triggers some military grade self-protective mechanisms, StayBehind, who is loyal and supportive but taciturn and quiet, unable to shake off the pain and rigour of his past programming – well, at least, until a growing friendship with the rambunctiously happy Sweetie grants him a measure of healing he didn’t know he needed – discovers that they are collateral damage from a failed scammy business enterprise.
Cayenne flashed turquoise with approval. That’s a good look. You could add some LED lights fore decoration.
I like it too, slippery pal. I feel more like myself.
Sweetie checked herself in the reflective backsplash again, smiling. Something about seeing her own skull gave her an angry burst of hope.
While the humans have fled, the HEEI they contracted were left behind, and while postwar, newly independent California has granted “robots”, which are ubiquitous in roles all through society, a swathe of rights, they remain second class citizens, their rights exercised purely at the behest of their human counterparts.
So, as they grapple with the fact that they now have the opportunity to be independent in a way never possible before, their only human companion an ex-employee called Robles who treated human and HEEI alike, a striking example of embracing all forms of life with inclusive love and understanding, they also have to take into account that their freedom is heavily circumscribed and in peril with all kinds of threats looming.
They face financial issues – each of them, save for StayBehind, have contracts that just be kept paid up if they are to stay truly autonomous and self-determining – and terrible online prejudice from groups like the Vigilance Committee which sees HEEI as a problem rather than a gloriously alive solution.
Still, even in the face of all those challenges, the four main characters are the heart of Automatic Noodle, which is a pejorative term used by the bigots which Sweetie etc turn around and use to their advantage, are excited by the fact that can take their talents for making awesomely tasty food, in this cage, spicy and supple biang bang noodles, and truly to take charge of their lives for the first time.
The novella beautifully balances its storytelling between the way in which the dreams of Sweetie, Cayenne, Hands and belatedly, StayBehind, find gloriously uplifting fulfillment as they become the culinary stars of a newly-liberated San Francisco, seeking to find the new in the rubble of the old, and the threats they face, from online trolls and destabilising work by USA spies but also from lingering ideas that HEEI can’t be allowed to have too much autonomy or humanity will lose out.
As usual, that is just cruel and nasty bigotry, empty of thoughtfulness and any sort of empathetic, embracing humanity, but it is a headwind through which the four characters and their growing found family of humans, HEEI and sentient delivery cars must push if they are to truly realise their dreams.
What is so gloriously good about Automatic Noodle is that Newitz manages to make a lot of salient points without once weighing down her story in polemic wordiness and intensity.
Tackling topics like the importance of community, the pointlessness of bigotry, what it means to own your identity and how capitalism can both empower and imprison, Automatic Noodle is brilliantly rich in ideas and buoyant humanity, its messaging seamlessly and impact fully woven into a joyously grounded narrative.
They continued to hug in the misty darkness, their exchange moving beyond text. For the first time in Cayenne’s life, they felt like they were running towards a prosperous future, not racing from debts of the past.
You get comfort and the embrace of family and community, all of which will lift your soul and elevate your heart, and you get a love letter to food, a touching poignancy that can’t help but move you deeply and an enlivening sense of what is possible when you stare down evil and terror and demand your place in the sun without apology.
Automatic Noodle is all kinds of wonderful things, much of it powered by Newitz’s typically thoughtful and heartfelt writing, vibrantly imaginative world-building and characters so fully-formed and deeply loveable that you very much feel like a member of their found family by book’s end.
Yes, it is well and truly aware of the fact that the world, now or in the 2060s, can be a vile and cruel place where people lost to hate and bigotry break down dn destroy for the most thoughtlessly base of reasons, but Automatic Noodle also knows that love, community, family and hope-filled dreams have enough emotional muscularity to overcome all of it, because there is drastically more power in building and growing and standing together than there will ever be in division and hatred.
Diving into the emotionally intimate beauty of Automatic Noodle is one of the best things you will ever do, granting you time with wonderfully unique characters, a story that is both dramatic and quietly heartfelt in equal measure, and a powerfully embracing sense of community that will reassure you of how wonderful it can be to find your people, stick to who you are and what matters to you, and to live your life freely and unapologetically in such a way that you might, rather wonderfully, change the world around you.